Senate Proceeding on Feb 13th, 2009 :: 3:56:50 to 4:06:10
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3:56:46 to 3:57:07( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: president's desk to become law. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. demint: thank you, mr. president. this is bittersweet day for a lot of us. i knoa lot of americans, a lot of americans have called in

3:56:50 to 4:06:10( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Jim DeMint
Bill: H.R. 1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

3:57:08 to 3:57:28( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: expressing their opinions and sent thousands of e-mails and letters. if my colleagues' offices are anything like mine, mine have been 80% or 90% ainst this bill. folks are saying, slow down, let's see what's in it. we know of unintended consequences. let's not spend all this money

3:57:29 to 3:57:49( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: unless we really kw what we're doing. folks have expressed that we seem as politicians for talking down the economy so much holding press conferences in the very worst areas of our country saying this is what is happening everywhere and every day saying it's going to get worse, it's

3:57:50 to 3:58:11( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: going to get worse. what businessman would expand his business or businesswoman would go out and invest her life savings to start a new business if what they were hearing from washington every day was tell and "it will get worse." i'm afraid we have done our part creating a bad economy.

3:58:12 to 3:58:33( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: clearly there is a difference in philosophy that i have to respect. as the president and democrat majority said, they won the election. they get to do it their way, now. i think some of us believe if you look at history, i believe there's a lot of facts behind us that when the economy slows down and there a need to get more money in the economy, the best and quick of the way to

3:58:34 to 3:58:54( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: do it is to stop taking so much out in taxes. some say on the other side, well, tax cuts are an old idea but tax cuts are related to individual freedom. people making their own decisions about how money is invested. leaving profits in the hands of thousands of small businesses so they can use that money to hire

3:58:55 to 3:59:15( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: people and go their businesses because that's where all the jobs are created. government doesn't really create jobs. i mean, it may hire someone but they have to take that money to pay that person from the pvate sector, fro actually creating the wealth. so much data we have talked about in this very, very short

3:59:16 to 3:59:37( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: debate and people have talked about the great depre it is pretty clear we tried getting out of the great depression for 10 years by just spending and adding new government programs and it didn't work. in the 1960's the economy grew after president kennedy cut taxes and our economy sagged gap

3:59:38 to 3:59:58( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: during the big spending days of lyndon johnson. in the out of recession or grow our economy with heavy spending and new government programs and huge deficits. ended up in recession again. in the 1980's, those were the boom years when reagan and margaret thatcher and others

3:59:59 to 4:00:19( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: around the world realized that tremendous dome really does work. free markets really do create prosperity. we have even seen countries like the soviet union change from their old centralized government approach to some free market principles and of their problems. we talked about japan during

4:00:20 to 4:00:40( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: this debate. they have a lost decade. their kept their highest in the world and they tried to spend third way out of a recession. it didn't work. they lost a lot of time and a lot of money, a lot of opportunity. a big difference in philosophy

4:00:41 to 4:01:02( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: that we should debate. but whyhe rush? i think the corester nation i -- consternation i hear from the american people now more than anything else, if this is the biggest spending bill history, why are we trying to rush it through, why does it have to be on the president's desk monday morning? why are we going to vote on a bill that not one of us have finished reading at this point?

4:01:03 to 4:01:24( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: we just have had it today in any kind of searchable format on the internet, yet we're going to vote on it before we leave today. it seems like we're afraid there might be some good news coming out of the economy in different sectors and the panic could subside long enough that maybe congress doesn't feel like we

4:01:25 to 4:01:47( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: have to do something even if we don't know what it is. it just seems that we're rushing su an incredibly spending bill. i talked to one of my sons last night. 00 spread out in 7 increments. the bad news is, you'll probably owe about 0,000 or more because of this one bill.

4:01:48 to 4:02:08( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: he didn't seem to think it that good a deal. well, i know the other side won and that makes it bittersweet in a way because i feel like a lot of us have been standing up for what the american people are calling and telling us about. we know the people who are earning it and hiring people keep the money

4:02:09 to 4:02:31( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: that we would stimulate the economy. there are other things we could do other than tax cuts assist well. i mean, there are other things we could do other than tax cuts as well. i mean, to -- energy. at a time when we know that just by opening up our own energy reserves, drilling for our own oil and natural gas, we could stop the flow of american dollars overseas, create lots of jobs here.

4:02:32 to 4:02:52( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: but this very week, this new administration delayed the planning of opening our own reserves by another six months. what are we waiting forks the gas prices to go back up to or ? why delay something that could help the economy? if we only allow states to take the money we're already spending for education and allow students

4:02:53 to 4:03:13( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: to take that to any school of their choice, it would attract literally billions of dollars, probably hundreds of billions of dollars of private-sector investment in education to create all kinds of new choices for students that might actually prepare them to compete in the global economy. but what we're doing is just more government spending with

4:03:14 to 4:03:36( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: theld government model and it's not g jobs. even in health care, there's something in this bill that will help subsidize people's health care with cobra when they lose their jobs. but we won't allow thatame subsidy to apply if that person wants to buy a less expensive policy of their own that they can keep more than

4:03:37 to 4:03:57( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: just a few months. we'll support something that's government but we won't help people live free and make their own choices. you know, certainly it's bittersweet. but the news is not all bad today. i think the american people have resigned to the fact that they're going to lose this battle, but they have gotten

4:03:58 to 4:04:19( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: more informed and more engaged and outraged. and i think they've seen that if they call, if they e-mail, if they stand up and if they express their opinion, they have a chance to move by our government towards a more socialistic style of me and culture to one that's more like the freedom that americans have

4:04:20 to 4:04:41( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: always known and loved. freedom's not an ideology. it works when we let people take advantage of opportunities and direct their own spending and start their own businesses, that creates jobs. we can't do that artificially by taking money from one person and giving it to another, which we're doing a trillion times in

4:04:42 to 4:05:02( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: the bill that we're talking about here. i think americans are watching what's going on today they're going to wonder why we voted a bill that's not even on our desk, that we haven't read yet, that they haven't been able to search. as the president promised during his campaign, that he would not sign any bill unless had been on

4:05:03 to 4:05:24( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: the internet for at least fife days s the american could know what we're doing here. and we've promised in these chambers that we wouldn't bring a bill to the floor unless it was on the internet for people to see before we voted on it. and we're breaking all tho promises with this bill today. but the american people may have lost this one but they've raised their choice and they've seen

4:05:25 to 4:05:45( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: what's going on a little bit better than they've seen it before. and i think they're going to win the final battle against this big-government approach to every problem that comes up. against this idea that every time there's a problem out across america that we throw up our hands here and say, some -- we've got to do if it's wrong, even if we haven't read it, even if it's a trillion dlars.

4:05:46 to 4:06:07( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: we've got to do something so that people back home will think we're doing something. wasting this kind of money and putting this kind of debt burden on the next generation is inexcusable and intolerable and the american people are starting to figure it out. they may lose this vote today but the american people will win that final battle for freedom

4:06:08 to 4:06:11( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: when ty continue the fight that they've started this week.