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Excerpts from Senator Hutchison’s Floor Speech in Opposition of the Economic Stimulus Bill

February 13th, 2009 . by TexasFred

Excerpts from Senator Hutchison’s Floor Speech in Opposition of the Economic Stimulus Bill

“First of all, the bill was written without any Republican input. It was written in the House of Representatives by the Democrats. There were no amendments allowed. The committees were not allowed to exercise their jurisdiction on the bill there. It came to the Senate. I was on the Appropriations Committee which passed the spending part of the bill. Amendments were discouraged. The meeting lasted a couple of hours. The same thing happened on the Finance Committee, which was the tax part of the bill, and there were no amendments that were able to be hammered out. There was not an amendment process where we gave and took. And to say that Republicans had a chance to have input is really disingenuous. I do respect the President of the United States for coming and talking to Republicans. He talked to the Republican Senators. He talked to the Republican House members.

“With interest, the cost of this bill is going to be a trillion dollars. Now, people say, ‘It’s a spending bill. What did you expect?’ A spending bill? I still take a trillion dollars of taxpayer money, borrowing from the future very seriously. I think we ought to spend some time before we spend $1 trillion in a bill that is going to be off the budget, that is not in any projected budget that we have seen. It is going to add $1 trillion to the deficit.

“…the Congressional Budget Office, which is a nonpartisan arm of Congress that is supposed to give us facts without political bias, has said that most of the money in this bill is going to be spent in years three through ten. Well, a stimulus bill should inject into the economy an energy that will cause jobs to be either produced or kept, that will produce spending so that there will be something for people to make and for retailers to sell, and after we have that stimulus, which we hope would be in the private sector, and therefore permanent, then we’re going to have to deal with the deficit in years three through ten so that we don’t get into an upside-down situation where we have so much debt that either our foreign investors will not buy our debt or, if they do, the risk is so good that they increase the interest rate.

“I believe that tax relief has been proven again and again to spur the economy. President Kennedy gave tax relief and it spurred the economy and increased revenue. President Reagan — tax relief, it introduced revenue. President Bush, 2001, when we were having a rough time in our economy, the first tax cuts, it turned the stock market around and it gave us the largest increase in revenue in the history of America.

“I’m for stimulus. We all know we need stimulus. I would like tax cuts that would spur spending, not tax cuts that would be driveled out in such small amounts that no one would feel they could go out and buy something.

“How about spending on infrastructure? How about more than 17% of a $1 trillion going for infrastructure that would be jobs today for people building bridges, building highways, building things that would be clearly job creation? I had an amendment, which never made it to the floor, that said that military construction should be moved up from the Department of Defense five-year plan to three years. Military construction is money that we know we’re going to spend.

“The Department of Defense has a five-year plan. They know exactly what their priorities are. We normally take it one year at a time. Why not take the five-year plan and bring it up and do it in two or three years because we know it would be American jobs? We know it is money that we’re going to spend anyway. It would be stimulative, and it would be the right kind of spending.

“Instead, the conference cut the military spending in this bill from what passed in the Senate. The conference cut our military spending for hospitals and for Veterans Administration hospitals to increase the quality and access to health care for our veterans. Mr. President, what kind of priority is that? And they’re increasing spending to save a mouse in San Francisco that might be endangered. Mr. President, this is not a package that we can be proud to give to the American people and say, it’s worth tightening our belts to do this because it will make a difference.

“…Mr. President, this is not the right bill for the American people, and I urge my colleagues to please consider their positions and let us do this right: Tax cuts to spur spending, tax cuts to spur the opportunity for corporations and businesses to hire people, spending on infrastructure, more in military construction, not less. That would be a bill that we could support, Mr. President.”

I received this in an email from Sen. Hutchison’s press Secretary. They seem to be a lot more attentive to the concerns of their constituency right now. It breaks my heart that Hutchison didn’t come out this hard against the Wall Street Bailout, illegal immigration, a strong border fence and stronger border security!

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5 Responses to “Excerpts from Senator Hutchison’s Floor Speech in Opposition of the Economic Stimulus Bill”

  1. comment number 1 by: Hyunchback

    As you previously posted the House passed this crap with true bipartisanship. Both Democrats and Republicans were against it. If Pelosi’s own party isn’t behind this 100% then it stinks.

    The three Republican sellouts are supposedly going to keep to this stinker. I know damned well that the Judas goats in the media will bleat about how those three treasonous scum are “bipartisanship” while ignoring the seven House members who decided to buck the Pelosi-Reid-Obama Highway To Hell bill.

  2. comment number 2 by: BobF

    Who knows, maybe she’s seen the light.

    They hammered out this bill in a matter of hours. They’re going to spend trillions of tax dollars without input from all the legal representatives of the Citizens of the United States. For some reason the part of my Oath of Enlistment where it says “all enemies, both foreign and domestic” come to mind, particularly domestic. If you have a Republican Representative and two Senators from your state, you’re being taxed without representation.

    Unfortunately what the American People don’t realize is this spending bill is in addition to the multi-billion budget that the country works off each year.

  3. comment number 3 by: Deron

    I just don’t understand how they can all agree to sign something without reading it. Then I heard on Hannity that the President didn’t read it either. So I guess the saying is true, if you don’t read what you sign you get screwed. And yes, we got screwed. I hope Nancy Pelosi’s little field mice are happy. God Help us all!

  4. comment number 4 by: Carl Andrews

    There is 248 million dollars in this thing allocated for new office furniture for the Department of Homeland Security.
    As 95% of the furniture sold in this country is made in foreign countries, how does this create jobs for Americans?
    Except for maybe some overtime for the delivery guys.

    According to what I could find, the Department of Homeland Security employs a total of 170,000 people.

    That works out to almost fifteen hundred dollars per employee.

    Couldn’t some one share a desk?

    Oh well, probably someone in Nancy Pelosi’s family owns a furniture store.

  5. comment number 5 by: Faultline USA

    As with most of us, I’m disgusted with the whole thing! Especially with the 3 Republican turncoats!!!