Date: 2010-06-29
Speaker: MARIO DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Flor

ida. Let me first thank you for bringing us together tonight to talk about such an important issue. The news recently has been full of pictures of the G20 meeting. where the leaders from around the world got together to speak about the economic situation in the world. And it was rather. I thought. ironic that you had on one side the Canadian leader. plus many European Union leaders. talking about how we have to control spending. we have to control debt and how the world economies are going. frankly. are on a path towards not being sustainable. And on the other side. pretty much alone. you have the President of the United States. who continues to insist that we need to spend more money and borrow more money in order to have the economy prosper. Now. we know how well that has worked so far. Think about it. We had the TARP bailout of Wall Street. We had then the socalled "stimulus." And the gentlewoman from Wyoming just spoke about the results of that almost trilliondollar borrowed money that the Federal Government took from the American people. from small businesses. from families. to spend it because they said they promised that it was going to fix the employment situation and that unemployment would be capped at 8 percent and 3plus million jobs will be created. And we know that the only place where jobs have been created. as the gentlewoman just said and showed so eloquently. was government jobs. Yet. private sector jobs have not been created. But wealth has been taken away from families and small businesses in order to spend and misspend and to waste that money. And then we had the second part of TARP. the second expenditure of TARP. and then we had the Son of Stimulus. Were continuously told that. Well. yes. thats really helping. and its worked. You know. how do you know if what youre being told isnt quite accurate? Well. just listen to what theyre telling you. The President himself stated that if the socalled stimulus were to pass that unemployment would be capped at 8 percent. would not reach 8 percent. Those are his numbers. That was his benchmarknot mine. not yours. not the gentleman from Pennsylvanias benchmark. That benchmark was established by the President. He established what he said was going to happen. and yet we all know what has happened. Unemployment is way above that. Job creation has been dismal. Weve actually lost millions of jobs after the stimulus passed. and yet we see our President in front of the world saying. number one. its worked and that we need to do more of it. as if were living in some weird time warp. Does he and does the leadership in the House not understand whats going on in Europe right now with Greece. for example. where Greece has had to get bailed out by the European Union because. frankly. their debt is so high and their expenditures are so out of control that theyve had to bail them out? Do they not understand whats going on in Spain now where everybody says that they are the next one to. frankly. implode economically because their debt is so high. because their expenditures are so high? It is my understanding that the President of the United States even called Spain and said. Hey. you have to cut back on expenses. And yet here he pretends as if we live in Disney World. that you can continue to spend peoples moneylet me restate that. Its not peoples money anymore. Its borrowed moneyand that there are no consequences. that its fake. that the words of just about every economist that says this is unsustainable are just. frankly. not true. So. by the way. if that were not bad enough. where have they spent this hardearned money? Where has it gone? Now. if I were to tell you all thatI dont know. Pick your government. Pick a government. a neighboring government. I dont know. Guatemala. Argentina. wherever you want. If we said. Hey. you know. the administration there just established a Web page. and the Web page cost $5 million. We would all go. Oh. my gosh. What have they done? Theres a word for that. Its not "waste." I mean. if that happened someplace else. we dont call it waste. We call it corruption. If we see that some government. some President has created a Web page for $5 million. wed look at it and wed say. Something strange is happening here. The Web page that was created by this administration to track the failed stimulus didnt cost $1 million. No. it didnt cost $5 million. The Web page cost $18 million. Now. you know. I ask the American people. Have you ever heard of an $18 million Web page? Does that sound like efficient use of your money? Does that make any sense? So you are wondering why it hasnt created jobs. Well. because the money has been wasted. And I am not going to use another word for it. a word that we would use if it happened someplace else. Im not going to use the word "corruption" for an $18 million Web page. But it sure smells funny. and it sure shows you that the money is wasted. and it sure demonstrates why it has not created jobs. And we could go on and on and on and on about money going to campaign consultants. stimulus money going to campaign consultants. And what is the answer? Is the answer of this administration. of this Congress. "Lets take a step back. Lets look at what weve done. It hasnt worked. Our debt is unsustainable. and everybody has told us that"? When Europe tells us that our debt is unsustainable. that becomes pretty evident and pretty obvious. right? When they tell you that were spending too much money. the Europeans. for Gods sake. tell the United States that were spending too much money and we are incurring too much debt. that should make us at least take a step back. Lets take a step back and figure out it hasnt worked. The administration has spent all this money. They said it would keep unemployment at 8 percent. It is now way over that. They said it was going to create 3.5 million jobs. That hasnt happened. The only jobs created were bureaucrats in Washington. So you would think they would take a step back and say. okay. the American people have suffered enough through this irresponsibility. Lets do something different. No. They continue to do more of the same thing. They continue to double up. because its not their money. Its the American peoples money. So they say. Lets just double up on it. We wasted all this money and it hasnt created jobs? Were going to do more. Were going to waste more of the taxpayers money. It is. frankly. totally unacceptable. I just want to throw out some numbers. and I will yield back. I want to thank the gentlewoman for allowing me to have this time. Whats the problem here? Look. in 2010. the Presidents budget. what he submittedand. by the way. Congress didwas $3.6 trillion. Thats the budget that was submitted. Heres the problem: The revenues for that year were $2.4 trillion. It doesnt require a NASA rocket scientist to understand what the problem is. But that wasnt enough. This year. the President submitted a budgetthe President didand he submitted a budget thats $3.8 trillion. But here lies the problem: The estimated revenues for this yearremember. $3.8 trillion. Thats what he submitted after he did it last year again. and all of the reasons why last year was a special year and all the past sins and thats why it had to be done last year. Well. now. this year he submits a budget for $3.8 trillion. But what are the revenue estimates for this year? $2.6 trillion. Now. if that was a company or if someone did that at home. they would be bankrupt. And thats precisely where this is leading the greatest. most prosperous. most generous. most decent nation on this planet. And thats not acceptable. Thats why even the Europeans are saying. What are you guys doing? And not only are they doing this. but we have results to show how well its worked. It has been a dismal failurenot because I say so. Because the President established the benchmark. and under the Presidents own benchmark it has been a dismal failure. There are consequences of this misspending of money. There are consequences for this debt. I just want to leave you with one last number. Just in the interest payments alonenot the principalto pay the interest payments by the year 2020. the American people are going to have to pay almost $1 trillion just in interest payments. Thats the Presidents budget. Thats what they claim is going to be the expensing. the cost. the numbers that are going to have to be paid by the American people just to pay the debt that they are incurring. You know. I want to thank the gentlewoman for bringing us here today to explain. to talk about. this is not monopoly money. This is real. This is our childrens and our grandchildrens future. This is the future of this. the greatest country on Earth. And we can take a step back. We can salvage the situation. We can create jobs. We can stop this path towards bankruptcy. But we need to do so now. And the reason the Democratic Congress is not even going to present. it seems. not even going to try to attempt. it looks like. to pass a budget out of the House is because these numberstheyre not my numbers. theyre the official numbersand they must be embarrassed to show the American people the truth so. therefore. theyre not even going to present a budget. I havent been here that long. But. in the time that Ive been here. thats never happened. Its never happened. Not even attempting to present a budget because the numbers are so dismal under their watch. This is not inherited. Under their watch the numbers are so dismal that they dont even want the American people to see those numbers. Well. you know something? The American people are wise. Theyre not dumb. You can try to hide the facts. but the facts are there. You can try to not show the numbers. but the numbers are there. So. again. I want to thank you for this opportunity to speak to the American people. directly to the American people. as to what their government is doing with their money. with their childrens money. with their grandchildrens money and with the future of our Nation. Im sure that well be able to reverse it. but we need to start now. Thank you. I yield back.