A Quarterly Report Card
Floor Speech
A QUARTERLY REPORT CARD
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Mr. WALBERG. Thank you, Congressman McCarthy. I certainly appreciate the opportunity to bring not only an update on Michigan, but to talk to the American public about concerns that I have about the budget and what goes on in these great halls.
Indeed, it has been a wonderful privilege to serve here. As I listened to colleagues on the other side of the aisle in the hour preceding, I would agree that it is a privilege to serve with men and women of sincerity, of character and commitment and of passion. And although we have disagreements, we serve in a body that has tremendous impact and tremendous history.
Yet even as I say that, I recognize that we are simply temporary custodians of the seats we hold in Congress, representing districts of people, taxpayers, citizens with great concerns. But even more importantly, as I have heard discussed maybe a bit too often about the extent of abilities that reside here in the Halls of Congress in each of our Members and the background and the training and the expertise that we share, yet I think that misses the point because indeed the greatness, the ideas, the generation of the economy and impact upon this world does not necessarily come from us, although we are part of it, but it flows from the people we represent.
That's the greatness of this country that allowed great men who journeyed from afar like de Tocqueville, to say America is great because America is good. But when America ceases to be good, it will cease to be great. I think de Tocqueville understood that goodness was not simply in the high morals of a country that he noticed here, it wasn't simply in the great work ethic of the people he saw on these shores. And as he walked across Michigan and came away, and it is reported that he called our State the Wolverine State because he indicated that any citizen who could put up with the swamps and the mosquitoes of Michigan at that time had to be a wolverine in tenacity. Hence, the Wolverine State.
Yet our great country of citizens have to be tenacious as well when we have a government that has grown too large, too grand, and too costly for them to keep up. The greatness of this country is not big, expansive, expensive government, but rather, the greatness of this country is its people.
And so this week we came to Tuesday, April 17, and it was imperative to us, and it was significant in its gravity that it was tax day again, a day that strikes fear and even anger in the hearts and minds of many, if not most, of our taxpayers. We sat here in Congress in these hallowed halls of constitutional responsibility having just come through passing the largest tax increase in the history of our country, $400 billion over the next 5 years. And we let our taxpayers go through another tax day paying more for big government.
Right now, taxpayers in south central Michigan, the district I am privileged to represent as the temporary custodian of its seat in Congress, people who are hardworking, people who have committed themselves to the task of being good stewards of the wonderful resources we have in the Great Lakes State, of being the former arsenal of democracy, of being a major manufacturing State and agricultural State and State of higher education, and yet a State that is struggling right now, I am sad to say, because of an administration that continues to push higher taxes and more excessive government regulation. We are saddled again with looking at what Congress has potentially done to us by passing this massive spending package called a budget with a $400 billion tax increase over the next 5 years.
Taxpayers in my district of south central Michigan are making tough choices every day to ensure their family budgets are balanced. They do so by cutting spending and having fiscal discipline, a concept we would do well to emulate.
It is time we make these same commonsense choices on a Federal level. The budget proposal introduced by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle and, in fact, passed by them imposes the largest tax increases, as I said, in American history: $400 billion over the next 5 years, $400 billion that the taxpayers of this country will pay, that the businesses will have impact upon them and their ability to give jobs and security to the taxpayers and their workers.
Like the Democrats', as I would call it, ``insecurity supplemental'' that telegraphed their plan for defeat to our enemies, this budget telegraphs their plan for economic failure if we continue down that path for this great country. Their plan institutes a $3,000 tax increase for the typical Michigander in my district and embraces a spend now-reform later mentality.
You just have to go to some of the basic concepts of their proposal. The Democrat budget would hit 115 million taxpayers with an almost $1,800 tax increase in 2011. In addition, 26 million small business owners would see their tax bill rise by almost $4,000 that year. Marriage penalty relief would be eliminated for 23 million taxpayers, who would see their taxes increase on average by $466 by 2011. Raising taxes on families with children, it would hurt 31 million taxpayers who would see their taxes increase on average by $859 by 2011.
Those are just highlight scenarios of what is going
on with that tax increase.
Congress needs to pass a balanced budget bill without raising taxes. We need to make tax relief permanent for hardworking American families and implement a commonsense policy for the future. That is why I was proud to support the Republican alternative budget proposal.
The benefits of our proposal, just a few highlights, 113 million taxpayers will see, if this were passed, their taxes decline by an average of $2,200. A family of four earning $40,000 will receive tax relief of over $2,000. More than 5 million individuals and families will see their income liabilities completely eliminated. Forty-five million families with children will receive an average tax cut of almost $3,000. Fifteen million elderly individuals will receive average tax relief of almost $3,000. Twenty-seven million small business owners, the breadbasket of the economy in my district, will save on average $4,700. A total of 7.6 million new jobs would be created under this proposal. An average of 168,000 new jobs a month could be created as well.
I think the message is clear, Mr. Speaker. This is the direction we need to go for this great country that has taken on challenges not only within our borders, but to continue doing what we are accustomed to doing as the greatest and most benevolent nation on this Earth because of what we have done to encourage wealth and prosperity and responsibility and accountability and benefits from all of that. That blessing that goes beyond our shores and makes an impact upon people that I had the privilege of seeing, whose beneficiaries came from sources that I talked with in Walter Reed Hospital today, the young men and women who served valiantly for us, who sacrificed for us to continue the progress and continue the benevolence of this great people.
Mr. Speaker, the American people long for a Congress that puts our fiscal house in order on a Federal level, but they want it done without expanding the size and scope of Federal Government.
They are asking for the greatness to continue within the people of this great country which would include this great government if we would indeed recognize where that greatness comes from.
So what a privilege again to be a temporary custodian of this seat in Congress, but what a huge responsibility to stand firmly for principles that will, if enacted, as we have seen historically 100 percent of the time, expand the economy, expand the opportunity, and offer freedom, opportunity and prosperity for our citizens and others all around this Earth.
Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, and the gentleman from California, Congressman McCarthy, thank you for putting this Special Order together this evening.
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Mr. WALBERG. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for yielding and for putting this together.
And I would agree with my colleague from Ohio. And it is tough for a Michigander to agree with anyone from the Buckeye State. We have wonderful rivalries that go on. But he is absolutely correct. We are talking about the future. We are talking about our kids.
I have a grandson, Micah, that I want to invest for by leaving a country that he indeed can have invested in for himself from his parents and the opportunity for them to use their resources to provide for him and provide for others in the process.
I have become greatly concerned with the concept that we have heard from the other side of the aisle too often about investing in our great economy. And ``investing'' in their vernacular means tax increases, spending more of government dollars which, in fact, are taxpayers' dollars.
We need to get away from that and allow our taxpayers, the generator of the economy, of a small business, of the manufacturer, the entrepreneur to be able to invest in themselves to make this great country stand not on its government but stand on its independence, its freedom. Because, Mr. Speaker, I am sure you and I would agree on this, that our responsibility here, as Members of Congress, is to fight for and defend and continue the freedom of this great country. And that comes with the ability for people to invest, to save, to spend, to enjoy their property, to be responsible and experience the virtues of hard work, of loyalty, of faithfulness.
I believe Jonathan Witherspoon said, ``A republic must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty.''
It is a virtue for this country to reward its citizens for being responsible. It is a virtue for this country to applaud people who work hard, who save, invest, who create the economy. And it is a virtue for that same group of people, our citizens, to say to a government, we respect you for leaving that responsibility to us. That is freedom.
And, Mr. Speaker, I am deeply, deeply indebted to the people of my district for giving me the privilege to fight for that very thing along with colleagues like you have heard tonight on this floor.
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