Tom McClintock for Congress

Floor Speech given in the House Chamber on June 15, 2010.

M. Speaker: The proponents tell us that this bill will increase lending to small businesses.  To do so they are creating a $30 billion slush fund to make loans to smaller banks, therefore encouraging smaller banks to make loans to small businesses.  Or so they say.

 It is a splendid example of what I like to call McClintock’s Second Law of Political Physics: the more we invest in our mistakes, the less willing we are to correct them.

Congressman Tom McClintock (CA -04) made the following remarks at a forum held at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. to discuss the Greek bailout.

Remarks on the Greek Bailout
May 19, 2010

 I spoke with Marvin Goodfriend of Carniegie Mellon just before we came out and I don’t want to steal his thunder but he appears to have come up with a radical new economic theory that if you spend more than you take in year after year eventually you will run out of money.

Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech on June 11, 2009.

M. Speaker:  Gov. Schwarzenegger of my home state of California has called for the federal government to underwrite as much as $15 billion of Revenue Anticipation Notes that the state has to issue to avoid insolvency.

I think that would be a colossal mistake, and that such an act would not only dig the nation deeper into the hole it is in, but would actually make California’s fiscal condition worse.

Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech on April 21, 2009.

Mr. Speaker:  Many Americans have been shocked in recent days to learn that banks seeking to repay TARP money have been told the treasury will not allow them to do so.

Taxpayers were promised that this money was only to be used to buy up toxic assets and that it would be repaid to the treasury as soon as humanly possible.

And yet, when several banks have attempted to do precisely that, they’ve been told that the treasury will not allow them to do so.

Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech on March 17, 2009.

M. Speaker:

I have been asked to present more than 6,000 postcards generated by the Armstrong and Getty radio show to protest policies that can best be described by the new bumper sticker, “Honk if you’re paying my mortgage,” or today’s reprise, “Honk if you’re paying AIG’s bonuses.”

Rick Santelli of CNBC struck a nerve last month when he asked, “How many of you want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage who has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?”

Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech on March 6, 2009.

Mr. Speaker:

We have all heard a great deal of rhetoric blaming the Bush administration for the nation’s economic woes, and I actually rise to join that chorus.

We all are painfully aware that the Bush administration increased spending twice as fast as it did under Bill Clinton.  The Bush administration added $160 billion to the deficit through tax transfers with its first stimulus bill a year ago – despite warnings that it would do nothing to stimulate the economy.  It didn’t.

Mme. Speaker:

Before we continue with a stimulus policy that has consistently failed to stimulate anything but government, I think the supporters of this program need to answer some very simple questions.

For example, the President himself told us yesterday that this $800 billion of new spending will produce up to four million new jobs.  That comes to $200,000 per job.

M. Speaker:

The mantra we hear from the Left is that government – rather than the productive sector – needs to create new jobs.  According to our new President, the $825 billion spending bill will create 3 million new jobs.

That sounded pretty good to me at a time when our economy is hurting so badly, until I pulled out a pocket calculator and did the math.  Three million new jobs for $825 billion.  Ladies and Gentlemen, that comes to $275,000 per job!