The Economy And Our Freedom

Floor Speech

The Economy And Our Freedom

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Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you very much for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, it's a privilege to participate in this discussion.

As a new member of the Budget Committee, I learned today that the President's budget would project the levels of spending in the war in Iraq at the same level that they are during the surge, and use that dollar amount and project it out to the year 2019. It does not account for the fact that President Obama has decided to withdraw combat troops from Iraq in August of 2010, but for this manner: if you project that spending is going to go up when you factor in inflation until 2019 at surge levels, and then you project that we're going to withdraw

troops, that gives you $1.6 trillion that the administration is choosing to spend on other programs. In other words, that money won't be saved, it will be redirected into other components of this President's budget.

Mr. AKIN. Reclaiming my time, are you saying in a way you've almost got a sneaky cut in defense spending?

I yield.

Mrs. LUMMIS. Thank you for yielding. It does, in a way, accomplish just that because it's taking money that is being spent on defense now and rerouting it into domestic spending that is discretionary and creates new programs. Now, I would not object to that but for the fact that this increased spending is in addition to new taxes. And the gentleman was accurate in pointing out the effect that that will have on small business.

As you know, my State of Wyoming is all small businesses, that an individual tax rate of $200,000 will trigger a tax increase, that filing jointly at $250,000 in income will trigger a tax increase. And correctly you have pointed out that the brunt of that is going to fall on small business.

Small business has been pegged as the opportunity for growth in this country through the entrepreneurial free enterprise ethic. And if that ethic is thwarted through high taxes, that will be a component of our country that is not growing. That is the component of our country that is creating 70 percent of the new jobs. So as large employers lay off employees because they were ``too big to fail'' and then failed anyway, it would be a robust small business community that could absorb them if the tax structure were such that those monies could be made available by expanding the entrepreneurial spirit.

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