Matt Rutherford's Solo Sail

Floor Speech

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Mr. BARRASSO. Mr. President, I have risen many times over the past 3 years to talk about the bad policy choices of the Obama administration and the harmful effects of these policies on our economy and on the American people.

In many ways, the President's decisions have made things worse in our country. The bill before us today would impose what is being called the Buffett tax. It is just one more example of a policy that will hurt our economy, not help it. This tax will take money from the pockets of small businesses that they would use to create jobs. More than one-third of all business income reported on individual returns would be hit by this tax increase.

Back in September President Obama said this tax hike on American families would raise enough money not only to pay for his increased spending but it would ``stabilize our debt and deficits for the next decade.'' Back then he said: ``This is not politics; this is math.''

Of course, we now know the Buffett tax is only about one thing: politics. The increased tax revenue would amount to about $5 billion this year, which is about the same amount of money Washington will borrow over the next day and a half. The President would have to collect his so-called Buffett tax for more than 200 years just to cover the Obama deficit from last year alone. That is not just my math; that is the math from the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The Buffett tax will not fix Washington's debt because Washington doesn't have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem. Even one of President Obama's top economic advisers finally admits the Buffett tax will not ``bring the deficit down and the debt under control.'' Based on his record, it is clear the President would not put a single dollar raised by his new tax toward the debt. He will just spend it.

So the President has now changed his story once again. Now he says this is no longer a way to pay down the deficit. Now he says it is just a matter of fairness.

President Obama has been using the word ``fair'' in quite a few of his campaign speeches lately. It is a word of great appeal to most people. Just like ``hope'' and ``change''--the buzz words of the 2008 Presidential campaign--people can interpret it to fit their own meaning. President Obama's idea of fairness doesn't match up with the American people's idea of fairness.

Senator McConnell earlier made reference to an editorial I wrote in Investors Business Daily. President Obama thinks it is fair that our children and grandchildren will be burdened with debt because of Washington's reckless spending, such as borrowing 42 cents of every $1 it spent so far this year. President Obama thinks it was fair to pile another $40,000 of debt onto every household in the United States over the last 3 years.

President Obama thinks it is fair to use college students as props for his campaign-style rallies without explaining how his bad policies will leave them in debt. President Obama thinks it is fair to force hard-working taxpayers to subsidize a wealthy person's purchase of a hybrid luxury car because it fits into his idea for American energy.

President Obama thinks it is fair to hand out hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to politically connected solar energy companies that then go bankrupt. President Obama thinks it is fair to tell thousands of workers they will not have jobs because he has blocked the Keystone XL Pipeline. Why? To solidify his support with a few far-left environmentalists.

President Obama thinks it is fair that more than half of his biggest fundraisers won jobs in his administration. That is right, more than half, which has been reported in the Washington Post. President Obama thinks it is fair to give important jobs to people who fail to pay their own taxes, such as his own Treasury Secretary.

Apparently, President Obama thinks it is fair that 3 years of the Obama economy have left us with more people on food stamps, more people in poverty, lower home values, higher gas prices, and higher unemployment.

There are many ways in which the American people's understanding of ``fairness'' differs from the way President Obama has been using the word. To the vast majority of Americans, ``fair'' means an equal opportunity to succeed. To President Obama, ``fair'' requires nothing less than a total equal outcome regardless of effort.

To most Americans, fairness allows for the pursuit of their own dreams. It also recognizes that no man and no government can provide a guarantee of success.

The waves of immigrants who have come to our shores over generations did so for freedom and for a chance to succeed. They did not come to be taken care of and to have every decision made for them by the government. That is what many of them were leaving behind.

When President Obama pushes for equal outcomes instead of equal opportunity, he is trying to pit one American against another. He is telling people it is not fair that someone else has something they don't have. That may be a clever campaign tactic, but it is not true, and it is bad for our country. One person getting more does not mean someone else has to get less. In America, it is possible for all of us to prosper. That is what made America different from the very beginning--the prospect that all of us can do better--not at the expense of our neighbors but by our own effort.

There is something that threatens to keep all of us from success. It is the thing that threatens to keep us all from passing on to our children the hope for their own prosperity. It is the crushing debt, the debt this administration has been forcing onto the backs of American workers. It is the mountain of bureaucracy that stifles American opportunity.

The old maxim says that a rising tide lifts all boats. President Obama seems to think it is better to put holes in all of the boats as long as that means they are all equal in the end. That is what he seemed to be saying in 2008 during one of the Democratic Presidential debates.

Moderator Charles Gibson asked then-Senator Obama why he favored raising taxes on capital gains. Our history clearly showed that when the tax rate has gone up, government revenues actually went down. Senator Obama said he wanted to raise taxes anyway ``for purposes of fairness.''

In the name of achieving what he considers to be fair, the President was willing to hurt millions of hard-working families who already paid taxes on their income--families who invested some of that income and now would have to pay

higher taxes again when they decide to sell some of those investments. The President didn't even care if Washington ended up with less money as a result of his efforts to punish success. The only important thing was that he thought it would be more fair.

That is a pretty extreme definition of what ``fair'' means, and it is not one the American people share. In any fair society, doing better should be a consequence of one's efforts. To President Obama, fairness means getting something for nothing.

The American dream is about people using ingenuity, ambition, and hard work. It is about overcoming obstacles. Americans admire the inventor who works long hours in the garage, building and failing and trying again and again until this inventor succeeds. Americans speak with pride about having worked their way through college washing dishes, pouring concrete, flipping hamburgers--whatever it took for them to reach their goals.

Most Americans don't speak with pride about being bailed out by Washington or cashing a government check. The idea of people earning their success has been a vital part of our Nation's character since our founding. It does not come from government. It cannot be redistributed.

The more government tries to redistribute success, the more strings it attaches because a handout from Washington always comes with strings attached.

The President's health care law is a perfect example. It is built on shifting millions of people onto Medicaid, a program designed to take care of low-income Americans. Putting more people on Medicaid is not the same as giving them access to the medical care they need.

Giving people unemployment benefits and funding short-term stimulus jobs is not the same as freeing up employers to hire more workers and providing long-term jobs and actual careers. Handing out benefits from Washington may provide a safety net in the short run, but when the short run turns permanent it robs people of the tools and incentives they need to succeed. It does even greater damage to our economy when President Obama pays for it by piling more debt on the backs of American taxpayers.

We all recognize the value of the social safety net. None of us--I repeat, none of us--wants to eliminate that protection. To be true to this country's greatest traditions, it must be a real safety net to catch people who are falling. It must never become a net to entangle them so they cannot rise nor a comfortable hammock on which they choose to recline.

Somewhere along the way Washington twisted the honorable American impulse to care for the most vulnerable among us. That shift now threatens to produce a culture of dependency that weakens our society and hurts the people it was meant to help.

A half century ago, John F. Kennedy appealed to the great spirit of America when he said:

``Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.''

Today, the Obama administration is trying to make Washington irreplaceable in the lives of Americans. The great irony, the great tragedy, is that no one is more trapped by this failed redistribution than the poorest--the people the President so often claims to be trying to help. That is part of the downside to the culture of dependency. It is why Washington can never provide for people as well as people could and should provide for themselves.

President Obama is focused on fixing all of the faults he sees in the American people. Republicans are focusing on giving the American people the opportunity to succeed using their talents and their hard work. When Washington tells people: Don't worry; your government will take care of all your needs, it does them no service. It only deprives people of their freedoms to make their own choices, to stand on their own two feet, and to earn their success.

The American people don't want Washington to pick winners and losers. They want a fair chance to win on their own. That is why they are asking for a clear and limited set of rules and the assurance that those rules apply to all of us, even those who donate to President Obama's reelection campaign. They are asking that the rules not change on the whims of some unelected bureaucrat in Washington. They want to know they still have the right to control their own choices.

President Obama says it is fair for Washington to make the decisions so that everyone is equal in the end. He says it is fair to take more money from hard-working families and small businesses through the so-called Buffett tax we are debating today.

Tax increases will not help our fragile economy, and they will not put the brakes on Washington's out-of-control spending. Republicans want to promote economic growth for everyone, not equality of outcome at everyone's expense.

Despite what President Obama may believe, America is not an unfair place. True fairness requires equal opportunity so all may pursue their American dream. That is what America was founded on, and that is the philosophy that must be allowed to lead us to a more prosperous future for all.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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