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[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 7 (Tuesday, January 13, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H187-H188]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                 YOUR HARD-EARNED MONEY BELONGS TO YOU

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NEUGEBAUER. Mr. Speaker, this summer, spring, we sent Americans a 
stimulus check to help stimulate the economy. We actually gave them 
some money. We had already spent the money that they had given us for 
taxes, and so we went and borrowed some money and sent that money to 
the American people to let them try to stimulate our economy.
  Evidently that didn't work as well as a lot of people thought it 
would, and so now there is a movement to spend much more, larger 
amount, triple, quadruple the amount of money that was spent this 
spring. Guess what? We don't have the money, and so we are going to go 
and borrow it.
  So what we are on is this system of tax, spend, borrow. Tax, spend, 
borrow. It isn't working. The American people know that that's not the 
right prescription for getting us out of this economic slump. Yet that 
is the plan that will be brought before this body possibly this week.
  This is going to be a big week for your children and grandchildren. 
We are going to have a $350 billion second half of the stimulus or the 
bailout program, and now we are talking about nearly $1 trillion in new 
spending for a stimulus package, $1.3 trillion.
  My friend from Texas spoke about the fact that Members from Congress 
are using their voting cards as credit cards. It's time, actually, for 
Members of Congress to start using their cards not as credit cards and 
mortgaging the future of our young people, but investing and beginning 
to spend money that

[[Page H188]]

we actually have, instead of spending money we do not have.
  This unrestrained borrowing and spending has got to stop because it's 
not working. Now, one of the things that we need to do to actually 
begin to stimulate the economy is just leave the money in the economy. 
How do we leave the money in the economy?
  Well, Mr. Speaker, what we do is we lower the taxes. We lower the 
taxes on individuals. We lower the taxes on corporations. We lower the 
taxes on small businesses.
  Our small businesses, for example, are the number one job creators in 
America. By lowering the taxes for small businesses, we are able to 
create jobs and opportunity. Whether it's Joe the Plumber or Ray the 
Electrician, when they have the opportunity to keep more of the money 
that they are making, they go out and buy a new service truck.
  Well, you know what happens when they buy a new service truck? They 
have got to go hire someone to run that truck, so they go out and hire 
an electrician or a plumber and maybe a helper. So that creates more 
and more jobs.
  But every time we take more and more of the money of Joe the Plumber 
or Ray the Electrician or the American hardworking people, when we take 
that money into Congress or into the government, one, that dollar gets 
a lot smaller when it goes back out and, yet, so we are taking, the net 
effect is, we are taking money out of the economy.
  I introduced a bill last week that would try to leave the money in 
the economy. What this bill would do would be lower each one of the tax 
brackets by--the tax rate on each one of the brackets by 5 percent.
  Also, it would make the top brackets in this country, both corporate 
and individual, 25 percent. That means that we have a further reduction 
in the amount of money that we take out of the economy on a daily, 
weekly and annual basis.
  Now, what could this do? Well, according to the Heritage Foundation, 
this could help create more jobs in our country. Possibly in 2009 it 
could create a half a million new jobs; by the year 2012, 3.6 million 
new jobs.
  If Americans and the American people are going to enjoy the freedoms 
and liberties that this Nation offers, the best way to do that is to 
allow them to have the opportunity to work and to earn their money, 
but, more importantly, to keep more of their money.
  One of the things that we have done in this country that concerns me, 
I think it concerns the American people, is this country was founded on 
principles of empowerment. People came to America with dreams that they 
would work hard, apply themselves. And if they did that, they could 
reap the benefits of their hard work and enjoy their successes.
  But, unfortunately, in our country today, they were running away from 
big government. Now the country that was founded on the principles of 
small business is moving more to big government. And how is the 
government getting bigger? It's taking a bigger and bigger chunk out of 
the American people's, American taxpayers' hard-earned money.
  Mr. Speaker, these are difficult times, yet they are challenging 
times, but they are times where we must make good decisions. Going out 
and mortgaging another $1.3 billion for future generations to pay back 
is not a good investment.
  I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting this bill so that we can 
leave more money with the American taxpayers. The American taxpayers 
deserve a better plan from the Federal government than more spending on 
top of a deficit already projected to be more than $1 trillion this 
year.
  Congress should focus on solutions that empower individuals and 
businesses to succeed in the economy, rather than solutions that make 
them more dependent on the Federal government.

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