Weekly Washington Update

The economy is in turmoil, working families have challenges, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi has introduced an $825 billion package that is not an economic stimulus bill, but rather a government stimulus bill.  This bill is going to cost each American family almost $10,522, it grows 150 government programs, and creates 32 new programs—19 of which the Office of Management and Budget show are ineffective and can show absolutely no results.   Further, only 7% of the proposed funds can be spent in the first year, according to the Democrat-controlled budget office. Again, this isn’t a bill to help the economy, it is a bill to help big government, and they’re using economic turmoil to release 15 years of pent-up demand for big government programs.

Look at history. In the 1990s, Japan tried a similar program and they ended up in the lost decade. They had eight stimulus bills in ten years, they ran up the largest debt of any industrialized nation, they had zero economic growth, they created no jobs, and their national income went from the second highest in the world to the tenth highest.

If you look over the last several decades of America’s history, every time we have faced a serious recession and we have lowered marginally rates on families it has taken us out of the recession. We know what works. Again, we want to stimulate the economy, we want to help small business, but congressional Democrats want to help big government.

I am in Washington to work with my colleagues to try to help American families keep the jobs that they have, give them better job opportunities tomorrow, give them tax relief so they can pay their bills, and not send all this massive, unconscionable, immoral debt to future generations.

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