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Speech in Opposition to the Budget H.Con.Res. 85

April 1, 2009
Speeches

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. April 1, 2009 Mr. Speaker: The American people are awakening to a danger of a budget that spends too much and borrows too much and taxes too much, because they know what that means.

They know that you can’t spend your way rich.

They know that you can’t borrow your way out of debt.

And they know that you can’t tax your way to prosperity.

No nation in the world has ever spent, borrowed and taxed its way to economic health. Many nations have spent, borrowed and taxed their way to economic ruin and bankruptcy.

If you want to know where these policies are taking us, just look to my home state of California.

There, a tragic succession of governors increased spending at unsustainable rates, they ran up unprecedented debts and they imposed crushing new taxes.

And the result is that today, run-away spending has impoverished our economy; interest costs are eating our budget alive; and our tax burden is producing one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation and the biggest outmigration of domestic population in history.

Indeed, we debate this budget on the very day that California begins collecting the biggest tax ever imposed by a state government in our nation’s history (the natural consequence of run-away spending) – just as President Obama’s budget relies on the biggest tax increase by the federal government in our nation’s history: back-breaking new taxes on small businesses, on investment, on energy production and on charitable giving.

This is not complicated stuff. If you increase taxes on productivity you get less productivity. If you increase taxes on energy production you get less energy. If you increase taxes on charitable giving, you get less charity. If you increase taxes on investment you get less job creation.

I’ve watched too much spending, too much borrowing and too much taxing wreck my state of California. I beg you: do not let those same policies ruin our country.


Issues:Fiscal and Economic