Lincoln town hall;  Congressman Tom McClintock will hold a town-hall meeting Thursday, April 28, 6:00 p.m. McBean Pavilion, 65 McBean Park Drive, Lincoln.

House Chamber, Washington, DC.

April 14, 2011

Congressman Tom McClintock delivered the following remarks during a debate on the 2012 budget bill introduced by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan:

The 2012 Budget
House Chamber, Washington, DC
April 14, 2011

History walks with us today as we begin this debate. 

History offers us not a single example of a nation that has ever spent, borrowed and taxed its way to prosperity.  Not one.

But it offers us many examples of nations that have spent, borrowed and taxed their way to economic ruin and bankruptcy.  And history is screaming this warning at us: nations that bankrupt themselves aren’t around very long, because before we can provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare, we have to be able to pay for it – and the ability of our nation to do so is now in grave danger.

Yesterday, the President attacked this budget because, he says, it lowers taxes on the rich while raising Medicare costs for seniors.

In reality, this budget ends many of the loopholes that have allowed some of the wealthy to pay less than their fair share of taxes, while it lowers the overall rate for those who have paid more. 

And since 82 percent of small business income is affected, economists tell us that the tax relief provided by this plan will produce a million new jobs next year.  That’s the healthy way to produce new revenue. 

The President apparently believes that by taking more money from small businesses they can create more jobs.  That is the economic folly that misguides this administration. 

Medicare and Medicaid will collapse if we continue business as usual.  This budget saves Medicare and Medicaid by putting them on a sound financial foundation.  It reverses the growing trend of doctors refusing to treat Medicare patients and it assures future seniors a far wider choice of physicians and plans than is available today.

This budget brings federal spending back under control and it places our nation on a path so that when my children retire, their retirement systems will be safe and secure and their nation will be debt free and prosperous.

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April 13, 2011

Field hearing of the House Water and Power Subcommitte, opening statement by Congressman Tom McClintock, Chairman, House Subcommittee on Water and Power.

                During the last session of Congress, Republicans unsuccessfully attempted for two years to get the Water and Power Subcommittee to come to Fresno to hear first-hand from the communities that have endured the devastating financial, social and environmental damage done by the government’s decision to deny this region 200 billion gallons of water to indulge the pet causes of the environmental Left.

            A little over a year ago, Republicans held an informal listening session, at which time we heard riveting testimony of the human suffering caused by this misguided policy. 

• We heard the stories of food lines in communities that once prided themselves on supplying American grocery shelves. 

• We heard about the frustration of seeing the same produce once grown in the Central Valley of California instead imported from China -- handed out at those Central Valley food lines.

• And we saw the anger as the absent Secretary’s testimony to the Natural Resources Committee in 2009 was played back, in which he admitted that the Obama administration had the authority to restore water deliveries but that it chose not to do so because that would be – quote – like admitting failure.

            Even now, with the snowpack at 165 percent of normal for the season – the wettest year in the last 16 – the San Joaquin Valley has been guaranteed only 75 percent of its contracted allotments. 

            In this discussion, the left has attempted to pit fishermen against farmers.  What they ignore, of course, is the actual science:

• They ignore the findings of the Northwest Fisheries Science Center that determined the Pacific Decadal Oscillation is the principal reason for changes in salmon migration; that these changes are not unique to Delta fisheries but have been observed throughout the Pacific Coast; and that as those conditions have improved over the last several years, salmon populations are rebounding.

• They ignore the California Department of Water Resources analysis of pumping flows that determined that their influence on salmon and smelt migration is negligible compared to natural tidal flows. 

• They ignore the overwhelming impact of natural predation in the Delta that alone is responsible for some 90 percent of salmon smolt mortality.

• They ignore the tremendous contribution of fish hatcheries to supporting fish populations.

• They ignore – indeed, they actively oppose – the construction of new reservoirs and other water projects that could dramatically increase year-round supplies of fresh cold water throughout the Delta.

• They ignore the findings of the Federal District Court that the U.S. Interior Department’s biological opinion on Delta smelt to be “arbitrary, capricious and contrary to law.”

• And worst of all, they ignore the plight of the tens of thousands of farm families needlessly thrown into unemployment by these policies.

             For too long, our government policies have been misguided by politically motivated junk science instead of the sober, dispassionate and accurate application of real science.  For too long, our government policies have focused on rationing of shortages rather than on providing abundance. 
           
            Today we will hear testimony about what these policies have done to harm the economy of the Central Valley and the cornucopia of fruits, nuts and vegetables it once produced for the entire world.  And we will hear suggestions on the changes in federal law that need to be made to restore abundance and plenty to all those who rely on the Delta.

            I know that people are feeling powerless and disregarded by Washington.  But the fact is that the debates inside the Capitol are merely a reflection of a much larger debate going on across the country.  The public is rapidly engaging, becoming aware of these past policies and demanding change.  As this occurs, public policy will follow.

            Chairman Hastings has made it very clear that he wants priority given to this issue, and from this hearing today, the House majority will craft legislation to restore abundance as the principal objective of federal water and power policy -- and with it, an era of abundant water, clean and cheap hydroelectricity, new recreational centers, desperately needed flood protection, burgeoning fisheries, re-invigorated farms – not to mention lower electricity, water and flood insurance bills for American families.

            It is toward that brighter and more prosperous future that this majority seeks to proceed.  It is my hope that the testimony today will assist the House in identifying those changes in law necessary to get there.

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The House Water and Power Subcommittee field hearing was held in Fresno, California, in the Fresno City Council Chambers, April 11, 2011.

 Mr. Chairman:  History walks with us today as we begin this work.  History offers us not a single example of a nation that has ever spent, borrowed and taxed its way to prosperity, but it offers us many, many examples of nations that have spent, borrowed and taxed their way to economic ruin and bankruptcy.  And history is screaming this warning at us: nations that bankrupt themselves aren’t around very long, because before we can provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare, we have to be able to pay for it – and the ability of our nation to do so is now in grave danger.

Throughout these hearings, economists from every part of the spectrum have warned us that if we have just a few precious years left to avoid a sovereign debt crisis and potentially the financial collapse of the United States Government.

Fortunately, history also offers us lessons of what to do and what not to do.

 We know what not to do.  Herbert Hoover responded to the recession of 1929 by increasing federal spending by a staggering 60 percent in just four years.  He began by imposing the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act – a steep tax on some 20,000 imported products – and ended by boosting the Federal Income Tax from 23 to 65 percent.  Franklin Roosevelt amplified and expanded these policies and in 1939, the unemployment rate was just as high as when he started.  We had lost an entire decade.

In 1945, Harry Truman abolished the excess profits tax.  He slashed federal income taxes. In 1946, Truman cut the federal budget from $85 billion down to $30 billion in a single year.  He fired ten million federal employees.  (It was called war demobilization).  The Keynesians at the time predicted 25 percent unemployment and a renewed depression.  Instead, his policies produced the post-war economic boom.

We have more recent examples.  During his administration, Bill Clinton reduced federal spending by a miraculous three percent of GDP.  He dared to touch the third rail of entitlement spending and produced the most important and fundamental reform of the welfare state in our century.  He signed what amounted to the biggest capital gains tax cut in history on home appreciation.  He produced the only four budget surpluses in the last 40 years and a period of pronounced economic prosperity.

True, George W. Bush reduced taxes but at the same time he recklessly increased federal spending – boosting it by 2.5 percent of GDP.  He re-introduced the discredited folly of stimulus spending.  He approved the biggest expansion of entitlement spending since the Great Society.  He produced massive budget deficits. If entitlement and stimulus programs, crushing deficits and massive spending increases were the road to prosperity, the Bush Administration should have produced a new Golden Age for the economy. 

Let’s put partisanship aside today and concentrate on policy.  In the mid-1990’s, a Republican Congress and a Democratic President, following precisely the policies outlined in the measure before us today – balanced the budget, reformed entitlement spending, placed us on a path to pay off the entire national debt and produced a period of economic expansion and prosperity.   

This budget turns us away from policies that we KNOW do not work toward policies that we KNOW do work.  It brings federal spending back under control, it puts Medicare and Medicaid on a sound financial foundation, it produces a million new private sector jobs next year through economic expansion and places our nation on a path so that when my children retire, the retirement systems they’ll have paid into all their lives will be safe and secure and their nation will be debt free and prosperous.
 

House Budget Committee, opening statement by Congressman McClintock. 

April 6, 2011
 

Oversight Hearing on “Creating Abundant Water and Power Supplies and Job Growth by Restoring Common Sense to Federal Regulations”

Opening statement by subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock

Today’s hearing is conducted pursuant to House Resolution 72 which directs all committees of the House to identify current and pending regulations that threaten existing jobs or impede the creation of new ones.

This sub-committee, with jurisdiction over water and hydro-electric resources administered by the Bureau of Reclamation, will have its hands full in meeting this obligation.

In Southern Oregon, regulators have devastated Klamath Valley agriculture and now threaten to squander $700 million of ratepayer and taxpayer funds to destroy four hydroelectric dams capable of producing 155 megawatts of clean and cheap electricity – and to shut down operation of the Iron Gate Fish Hatchery that produces five million salmon smolt annually.

Last year, this government diverted 200 billion gallons of water away from Central Valley farms in California to dump into the Pacific Ocean for “habitat restoration,” destroying a quarter million acres of the most productive farmland in the nation, throwing tens of thousands of farm families into unemployment and contributing to unemployment rates in the Central Valley exceeding 40 percent in some communities.

Even today, with snowpack at 165 percent of normal for the season – the wettest year in the last 16 – San Joaquin Valley farmers have only been guaranteed 65 percent of their contracted allotments.

Family farms on the Rio Grande in New Mexico faced extinction to provide nicer accommodations for silvery minnows until its delegation found the political will to act a few years ago.   Just over the horizon, the Santa Ana sucker fish in southern California could have devastating impacts on residents seeking to protect local water supplies. 

Across the nation, the EPA has waged an assault on rural America by imposing greenhouse gas regulations that will destroy small livestock operations, creating unjustified buffer zones on pesticide applications and opposing surface storage projects like the Two Forks reservoir in Colorado.  
 
 The great irony, of course, is that the very projects that have made sustained year-round water flows possible and that have lowered water temperatures to the benefit of fish populations annually are precisely those under attack by the radical policies of the environmental left.

 Not only have these water projects stabilized water flows and lowered water temperatures, the employment of ample fish hatcheries can provide for unparalleled abundance of salmon and other species.   Yet the federal government refuses to recognize fish-hatchery salmon as part of endangered fish counts and refuses to recognize the contribution that hatcheries can make to thriving fisheries

For many years, the central objective of our water and power policy was to create abundance – to make the desert bloom as the Bureau of Reclamation’s Founders put it.

But this original mission seems to have been lost to a radical and retrograde ideology that seeks to create, maintain and ration government-induced shortages.  And that is the policy cross-road where we have now arrived.

It is true that with enough government force, fines, lawsuits, edicts, regulations and bureaucracies we can restore plant and animal populations to their original prehistoric conditions by restoring the human population to its original pre-historic conditions.

Or we can return abundance as the central objective of our water and power policy – by providing abundant water, clean and cheap hydroelectricity, new recreational centers, desperately needed flood protection, burgeoning fisheries, re-invigorated farms – not to mention lower electricity, water and flood insurance bills for American families.

It is toward that brighter and more prosperous future that this majority seeks to proceed.  It is my hope that the testimony today will assist the House in identifying those changes in law necessary to get there.