Stop the Spending

Floor Speech

Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, many people are asking why Congress is here today. I think the answer is pretty simple: We are not bankrupting the country fast enough, and so we need to come back and spend even more.

In the merciful week that Congress was not in session, my constituents had one message: Stop the spending. Obviously, Congress isn't listening.

Over the past 2 years, this administration and this Congress have increased spending by nearly 18 percent and run up more debt in 2 years than the irresponsible Bush administration did in all of its 8 years combined. Meanwhile, unemployment has increased from 7.6 percent to 9.5 percent.

Yet, the problem, in the view of the House Democrats, is that we just aren't spending enough. So we gather here today to shovel another $26 billion at the problems. That comes to about $330 from an average family taken directly out of the Nation's struggling economy.

Now, the gentleman from Oregon just told us, well, don't worry, it is paid for. Well, how is that? $10 billion from increasing taxes on businesses with foreign subsidiaries.

But remember this: Businesses don't pay business taxes. Business taxes can only be paid in one of three ways: By us as consumers through higher prices; by us as employees through lower wages; and, by us as investors through lower earnings, mainly on our 401(k)s.

Another $12 billion comes from cuts in food stamps starting in 2014, but we are going to use the savings starting now.

I tried that one out on my wife the other day. ``Honey, sure we can afford that new jet ski this year. I am planning to cut our grocery budget by $10,000 in 2014.'' I am sad to report, she didn't buy it.

We are told this is part of the plan to save or create jobs. Well, Mr. Speaker, this is not saving jobs. It is destroying jobs. Government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy that it hasn't first taken out of that very same economy.

We see the jobs saved or created when the government puts the money back into the economy. What we don't see as clearly are the jobs that are lost or prevented when the government first has to take that money out of the very same economy. We see the lost or prevented jobs through chronic unemployment rates and a stagnant jobs market at a time when we should long ago have moved into a normal V-shaped economic recovery.

Nor does this even guarantee saving teaching jobs. Good school boards, faced with the choice between a couple of good teachers or a pointless and overpaid bureaucrat, are probably going to keep the teachers and fire the bureaucrat. But this bill says they don't have to make that choice. Indeed, this bill says they are actually prohibited from doing anything that would reduce their spending below last year's level.

What about Medicaid? A bipartisan group of legislators in my State of California tells us that they need this bailout money to save the State's Medicaid program. But bailing out bad management doesn't improve it.

At the peak of the good times when California was taking in more money than ever before, it was already running a deficit of over $9 billion, almost 10 percent of its budget. Just 4 years ago, those same bipartisan legislatures voted Medicaid expansions that have increased its share of general fund spending from 14 percent to 19 percent. California offers such Medicaid options as acupuncture, chiropractic services, and psychological counseling. And now they are shocked, just shocked, that they keep running out of money.

I love my State, but deficits that are made in California should stay in California.

Mr. Speaker, with the Nation now some $13.2 trillion in debt, that is about 93 percent of the entire U.S. economy, it is time to invoke the first law of holes: When you are in one, stop digging. And if Congress doesn't invoke that law now, it is becoming increasingly clear that the American people will invoke it in November.

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