Speech given to the Club for Growth Conference - Friday, March 4, 2011

Let’s see…

TARP losses: $284 billion.
Federal Reserve mortgage backed security losses:     $15 billion.
Fannie and Freddie bailout: $148 billion growing to $363 billion.
Current funds at risk: over a trillion dollars
Tea Party outrage: PRICELESS

Congressman Tom McClintock, Chairman of the House Water and Power Subcommittee, today made the following remarks on the House floor during consideration of a resolution directing committees to identify federal regulations that impede job creation and slow the economy

House Resolution 72
House Chamber, Washington, D.C

House Chamber, Washington, D.C. 
July 22, 2010

 M. Speaker: 

Anyone who has experienced firsthand the quiet panic that stalks every waking hour of an unemployed family knows how frightening and debilitating is chronic unemployment.  You watch your savings evaporate, you see your children going without the material things their friends enjoy, and you count down the months or even weeks until you won’t be able to make that crucial rent or house payment.

Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech on March 12, 2009.

Mr. Speaker:  Many people were quite relieved when President Obama promised to reduce taxes on 95 percent of Americans.

Last week, the President introduced his new budget that depends on a staggering tax increase of $1.4 trillion over the next ten years.  If that fell on all of us, it would come to nearly $15,000 on an average family of four – or $1,500 per year out of that family’s paychecks.

So what a relief to hear the President’s assurances that it’s only going to be a tax on the rich.

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.

Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech on March 3, 2009.

M. Speaker:

The Laffer Curve is a simple but elegant method of demonstrating how increasing taxes reduces economic productivity until a point of equilibrium is reached when further tax hikes actually reduce revenue.

If the tax rate is zero, tax revenues are zero.  But if the tax rate is 100 percent, tax revenues also reach zero, because there’s no point in working.

Rep. McClintock gave the following floor speech on Februrary 12, 2009.

M. Speaker:

I rise again to urge the majority to consider very carefully the damage they are doing to our nation’s economy by passing this unprecedented spending measure.

There is still time to heed the warnings from economists across the nation that this bill will do long-term damage to the growth of our nation’s economy for many years to come.

This is not mere economic theory: it is the consistent effect every time and everywhere that governments have tried to spend their way to prosperity.