House Proceeding 03-24-09 on Mar 24th, 2009 :: 2:43:00 to 2:53:00
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2:42:56 to 2:43:21( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: much, thank you for yielding. we have joined by a lang-time advocate for the people of his district, the second district in tennessee. he's been serving as a faithful member of congress for 21 years, mr. jimmy tremendous gentleman serving the area of knoxville and

2:43:00 to 2:53:00( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John J. Jr.Duncan

2:43:22 to 2:43:45( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: surrounding communities. mr. duncan: i want to thank the gentlewoman from minnesota for giving me this time. she has been a lead for the trying to restore fiscal sanity to this government. i represent a little over 700,000 people in east tennessee. "fortune" magazine said in 2000 that the knoxville area had become the most popula

2:43:46 to 2:44:07( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: to move to in the country based on the number moving in with few moving out. we've had a tremendous moving in of people from all over the country and many from around the world. so about half of the people i represent have moved from someplace else. i've got a real cross section state in this country. over these last few weeks, i can tell you from spend manager

2:44:08 to 2:44:28( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: time at home than i do up that people in east tennessee think we've just gone almost crazy up here, throwing around trillions just almost in a meaningless, haphazard way. and the gentlelady from minnesota showed is chart a while ago which said president obama's budget spends too much,

2:44:29 to 2:44:49( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: taxes too much and borrows too much. no truer words, mr. speaker were ever said on this floor. the "congressional quarterly" just yesterday came out with a chart showing that we're going to add $1.84 trillion just this year.

2:44:50 to 2:45:10( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: and we're going to addhat again the next year and $970 billion the year after that in three years we'll add over $4 trillion to our national debt in the most optimistic scenario by the estimate of the congressional budget office, and that comes on the heels of several weeks ago this congress

2:45:11 to 2:45:33( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: voting, most of us in the chamber at the moment voted against it but the congress voted to raise the national debt limit to $12,104,000,000.

2:45:34 to 2:45:55( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: what it means is in just a few years we're not going to be able to pay our social security and veterans' pensions and all the ings we've promised our own people. i used to say and i've heard many people say in the last few weeks even what we're doing to our children and grandchildren is terrible. and it is. but actually, i think that now we're doinit to ourselves. because i think that in 10 or

2:45:56 to 2:46:16( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: 15 years if that long, we're not going to be able to pay all these things we promised our own people. so it is -- i think it is really sad what we are doing to the american people because we're spending too much, taxing too much, and borrowing too much. joe scborough said on his national television program

2:46:17 to 2:46:37( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: just this morning, he said, we diagnosed diabetes in a patient but then prescribed a diet of cotton candy. he said, we're like somebody making $100,000 a year who has suddenly goneut and bought 10 $1 million houses. he said repeatedly something i've said many times over the

2:46:38 to 2:46:58( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: last couple of months, we can't afford it. we're spending money we don't have. every place in this world and throughout history, when a government has gotten in the position we're in you either have staggering inflation or staggering deflation and one is just about as bad as the other. i don't have a crystal ball to

2:46:59 to 2:47:19( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: know which one we're headed into, my guess would be staggering inflation. but what we're doing is reckless and what we're doing is dangerous. we passed a stimulus bill, it had some good things in it, but once again, we were spending money we did not have. "the washington post," which favored the stimulus bill, they had a front page story in which

2:47:20 to 2:47:40( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: it saiit was going to mean a massive financial windfall, their words, financial windfall for federal agencies. they had another story a couple of days laettner which they said tens of thousands ofew hires would be added on by federal agencies. that's -- of days later in

2:47:41 to 2:48:02( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: which they said tens of thousands of new hires would be added on by federal agencies. that's who is going to benefit. maybe a little bit will trickle down to everybody else. this area is one of the wealthiest in the country, the washington, d.c., northern virginia, southern maryland area, yet they're going to

2:48:03 to 2:48:23( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: receive a massive financial windfall according to "the washington post." lou dobbs last week said four million jobs had been lost in the private sector in the last year alone. yet government payrolls expanded by 151,000 and now because of what we passed up here, government payrolls are going to expand once again. but there have been so many

2:48:24 to 2:48:45( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: exaggerations over what's going to be done with this money, a couple of weeks ago, a daily newspaper in montana reported that the two montana senators had put out a press release say 40g jobs would be created because of this $1.3 million portion of the stimulus package.

2:48:46 to 2:49:08( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: the paper went to that agency and they said that -- that agency said no, we've already got almost full employment. we're going to add two people. because of this. the rest of this is going to be spent on the employees that they already have. so i think a lot of people are going to be disappointed over some of this money that we're spending and we're spending, as i said, money that we do not

2:49:09 to 2:49:29( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: have. now two of the members from ohio, my colleague mr. tiberi and the new member, mr. austria, both mentioned coal and utility bills and things of that nature because it has such a great effect on their state. we have powerful people in this

2:49:30 to 2:49:51( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: body that are attempting to cut way back and hopefully even to eliminate coal in this country. i can tell you this, anybody who is supporting that is going to really hurt the poor and lower income and working people because coal provides over 50% of our energy in this country today and if we double or

2:49:52 to 2:50:12( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: triple our quadruple these -- if we cut way back on cl, we're going to double or triple or quadruple our utility bills and hurt a lot of poor and lower income people. i have noticed throughout the years that most of the environmental rad dal -- radicals and environmental extremists come from very wealthy or very upper income families.

2:50:13 to 2:50:35( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: perhaps they don't realize how much they hurt the poor and lower income and working people when they destroy jobsnd drive up prices but if they cut way backn coal that's exactly what's going to happen. our leader mr. boehner mentioned another thing. he said this bill and we heard a presentation from the ranking member of the budget committee this morning which said that the president's budget has $1.9

2:50:36 to 2:50:58( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: trillion in new taxes or tax increases in that budget. jim cramer, the famous stock man, he's on television every night, he's been a six-figure contributor to the democratic party. he described the president's budget as the greatest wealth killer in history. and i'll tell you, that's a pretty serious charge coming

2:50:59 to 2:51:20( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: from that source. the greate wealth killer in history. . we just don't have enough people who understand -- there is waste in the private sector. but a business that continually wastes money canno stay in business long. but a governmental agency who

2:51:21 to 2:51:42( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: wastes money uses that to get more money next year. every dollar we'll keep in the private sector will do more to create jobs and hold down prices because money in the private sector is spent so much more efficiently than money that's turned over to government. the former chairman of the democratic party when he was mayor of philadelphia, he

2:51:43 to 2:52:03( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: testified before a congressional committee, he said government does not work because it was not designed to. he said there's no incentive for people to work hard so many do not. there's no incentive to save money, so much of it is squandered. that pretty much summed up the reason that money in the private sector is spent so much more efficiently than money turned over to the government.

2:52:04 to 2:52:24( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: so every dollar we can the private sector, i repeat, will do more to create jobs and hold down prices. so we certainly don't need a budget that increases taxes by $1st9 trillion. -- $1.9 trillion. it's been proven all over the world when you let government get too big what you do is you create this elite glass at the

2:52:25 to 2:52:45( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: top, you wipe out the middle class, and you create this huge startion or underclass. and certainly we have all traditionally in this country had the biggest middle class in the world because we kept our government, it's bee very difficult, but -- throughout history have kept our government one of the smallest in proportion to the g.d.p. in this

2:52:46 to 2:53:01( Edit History Discussion )

John J. Jr.Duncan: nation. i know there are some other once again i just want to thank the gentlelady from minnesota for her hard work and her leadership in regard to the fiscal condition of this government.