Economic Situation Facing Our Country
Floor Speech
ECONOMIC SITUATION FACING OUR COUNTRY -- (House of Representatives - March 23, 2009)
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Mr. FLEMING. Well, I thank the gentleman, my fellow Louisianan, Mr. Scalise, for yielding for a moment. I also thank my friend from Ohio (Mr. Jordan) for his comments as well.
You know, we are talking a lot about budget deficits. And we hear this word to the point where we're almost numb. We have to ask ourselves: Well, what difference does it make? If we go another year in deficit spending or perhaps over $1 trillion in deficit spending, is it going to change our lives?
So I think the average person out there who's maybe watching us on C-SPAN this evening has got to contemplate: What difference does that make?
Well, let me point out a couple of things in history that maybe we should think about. You may recall that during World War I, the allies defeated Germany and, after doing so, we required war reparations. The only way that Germany could deal with that, could actually make those war reparation payments, was just to print more money. They had to deficit spend big time.
It became such a problem that it literally took a wheel barrow to carry enough currency to go buy a loaf of bread. Of course, that sounds silly. It sounds like a caricature. But these people were in desperate need.
We, of course, suffered during the Great Depression. But the Germans, because of this, were in a tremendous need. It caused a complete collapse of their culture and their society. And what did we get in return? We got Nazism. We got Adolph Hitler. He took control of Germany only because that country became so desperate that it could not keep what was otherwise a democracy, could not keep that going.
We fast forward to the 1960s when we went through this second wave, if you will, of social programs in America; the first being, of course, the New Deal under FDR and so forth.
We have Lyndon Johnson who, of course, instituted many entitlement programs, many of which we have today. We saw that that deficit spending began at that point, and it began to accelerate. It was worsened by a prolonged war in Vietnam. But we really didn't see evidence of it, just like today.
Well, are we really seeing evidence of budget deficits? Are we really impacted in our daily lives?
Well, slowly but surely as the seventies rolled around and we began to also have problems with energy, we began to see inflation going up to the tune of 10, 12, 13 percent. We also went into a period of stagflation, where the economy became stagnant, prices remained high. The people who were hurt the most in all that were people on fixed incomes, because every year their dollars bought less.
And so then this country got into something we call cost of living increases, and everybody looked forward to that. They had to have the cost of living increases. But some got more than others and some didn't get any at all, and so we saw the deterioration in our economy and our standard of living as a result of inflation. To solve this, we put the hammer down by cutting off the supply of money, which made interest rates go up. I can remember trying to buy a house and getting a mortgage for an 18 percent interest rate, and that is because we were trying to bring the growth of money under control.
Mr. Speaker, the impact of deficit spending and budgets that are out of control do affect us in everyday life. I am old enough to have seen this happen, have studied it in school, have family members who were injured during World War II indirectly as a result of some of these financial consequences that occurred.
I feel like one of the main problems we have with our government today is we don't learn from history. History just seems to repeat itself over and over and over again. If there is anything we have learned in the past, that is that we have got to have fiscal discipline in our government. At home, I have to balance my budget, as difficult that is sometimes. My city, my State, they all have to balance the budget. Why is it that my Federal Government, the most important government, the most powerful government in this world, why is it that it can't keep its fiscal house in order?
I am a newbie Congressman, I have only been here 2 or 3 months. Before I came here, I really have had this nagging question: What is it about Washington that Washington can't get it right? And I was hoping that in coming here I would get at least some insight as to why we do crazy things with our spending and so forth. Unfortunately, now that I am here, it is worse than I ever thought. I am still seeking those answers.
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