Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

COMMERCE, JUSTICE, SCIENCE, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008 -- (House of Representatives - July 26, 2007)

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Ms. FOXX. I thank my colleague from California.

Mr. Chairman, I have been sitting here listening for a while to the debate on this bill, and I have been struck by several issues that have come up that I think need to be mentioned. Some have been mentioned before, but some new ones.

I am often asked by school groups what's the difference between Democrats and Republicans? I say to them the very quick definition is Democrats think they know how to spend your money better than you know how to spend your money. Republicans think that the less government we have, the better off we are; and the more money you are allowed to keep, the better off this country will be. I think that this debate certainly exemplifies that.

I agree with some of my colleagues who said before, the appetite of the Democrats is absolutely insatiable for increased spending. They never met a program they didn't love to spend money for. They would take every dime. They will take every dime, every penny from the American people that they can possibly take and spend it on programs they think are important.

They talk about investing government money. The government never invested any money. It spends money. The private sector invests money and gets results.

I would challenge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. Show me the results of these spendings that you do, and then maybe you can argue a little bit about an investment.

The other thing that I am struck by is how much last year in this same debate that the Democrats said the free-spending President Bush, busting the budget, doing all this spending; and now they are coming here and defend programs that the President zeroed out because they were ineffective, and they want to put the money back in.

That is the height of hypocrisy. There is a limited amount of money that Americans have, but the Democrats don't know that. They want to take it all. And it is true that the budget they passed earlier this year contains the largest or second largest tax increase in America, and that to pay for their programs they are going to have to have more tax increase.

This amendment would save a small amount of money, $27 million, but it is a step in the right direction. We have got to start reining in spending, and those of us who have come here in the last few years understand that, those Republicans do, and we want to see the Federal Government more responsive to the American taxpayer, less profligate, and more interested in saving our freedom, not in taking it away by taking away our money and reducing our choices.

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