Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California.
Mr. Speaker, at this time I
would like to yield 5 minutes to the indomitable
distinguished gentleman
from Texas (Mr. PAUL), who has
worked on this issue for some time.
(Mr. PAUL asked and was given permission
to revise and extend his remarks.)
2010 Ron Paul 18:2
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this
legislation, and I want to compliment
Mr. MITCHELL from Arizona for getting
this bill to the floor. We have worked
on this for several years. I am pleased
that this is going to be passed today.
2010 Ron Paul 18:3
Much has been said about the unemployment
rate in this country. And I
saw one other take on unemployment
today, where it said that for low-income
people below $20,000, the unemployment
rate is actually 31 percent,
which shows how devastating this recession
is, and for some it is an actual
depression.
2010 Ron Paul 18:4
I would like this bill to be passed, but
not just as symbolism. It is good symbolism
and important symbolism. As
was mentioned by the gentleman from
California, it is not a tremendous
amount of money, but it is important
for us to recognize that we have a serious
problem in this country and that
we shouldnít be careless about the way
we think about this problem. It
shouldnít make us feel necessarily good
because we passed this. This is just
necessary.
2010 Ron Paul 18:5
It does remind me of a piece of legislation
I introduced many years ago, in
the 1970s, when we had rampant inflation,
which I anticipate will probably
come back to this country. Back then
we had a 15 percent inflation rate. My
suggestion then in the form of legislation,
to get the Membersí attention to
understand what inflation was all
about, I said we should take a pay cut
at the rate of inflation. Even today we
might suggest that. There is a lot more
inflation out there than we admit to.
So maybe not only should we freeze our
salaries, maybe we should be taking a
pay cut so that we can do a better job,
because we really canít brag about the
job that we have done for the country
because of the condition the country is
in.
2010 Ron Paul 18:6
But I would like to extend this motivation
to freeze the pay of Congressmen
to freezing a few other things. I
would like to see our budget at least
frozen where it is. That would go a long
way to solving some of our budgetary
problems. And how about freezing the
debt level. Letís not raise the debt
level. Instead, this next year our national
debt is going to go up about $2
trillion when you add up all that we
borrow from our trust funds.
2010 Ron Paul 18:7
Also, I would like to see a freeze on
regulations because regulations usually
backfire. There are unintended
consequences, they cost a lot of money,
they act as a tax, and they donít improve
the economy overall.
2010 Ron Paul 18:8
I would be in support of freezing the
wealth transfer system, the system
that most people think is going to help
all the poor people. The trouble is the
wealth transfer system helps the rich
people, and they are the ones who get
the bailouts and the poor people donít.
So a freeze on wealth transfer would go
a long way toward restoring a free society
and a constitutional government.
2010 Ron Paul 18:9
Also, I think the consensus of the
American people today is we ought to
freeze the bailouts. Letís not bail out
anybody anymore. But it looks like it
will be a long time before that happens
because we have a monetary system
where we have somebody over there
called the Federal Reserve that says we
can print money at will, and our job is
to be the lender of last resort. That
means to bail anybody and everybody
out that needs money. And it looks
like that will be domestic as well as
international.
2010 Ron Paul 18:10
I would like to freeze the ability of
the Federal Reserve to print money out
of thin air. That in moral terms is
counterfeit, and yet that is the encouragement
for us to run up our deficits
because the Fed can come in and increase
the money supply. A sound monetary
system would have frozen anybodyís
ability to just create money out
of thin air.
2010 Ron Paul 18:11
I would also like to freeze the income
tax at the 1912 level. And that indeed
would be a real boost to the people of
this country. All of a sudden there
would be great wealth in the hands of
the consumer. Just think if all the
money that we spent on the bailouts
that just tided things over, if just a
portion of that had been used to get rid
of the income tax, I think the money
would have been better spent because
the people would have been spending
the money instead of the bureaucrats
and the politicians and the regulators
that bailed out the people who were
making all the money in the first
place.
2010 Ron Paul 18:12
But I would also extend this freeze
onto some other things, too. I would
like to freeze some of our militarism. I
think we have enough fighting going
on. I donít think we should expand the
war. I donít think we should be looking
for another enemy. I would like to
freeze the sanctions on countries. I
would like to see a lot more free trade.
I would like to see that the bombing is
not extended, that we quit allowing our
CIA to extend the bombing of countries
that have not attacked us. I would also
like to put a freeze on this concept of
preventive war. This whole idea of the
concept of preventive war means that
we can literally start the war.
2010 Ron Paul 18:13
So, yes, itís good that we are freezing
the salaries of us here in the Congress.
But if we really want to restore the Republic,
we will freeze a lot of these
other issues as well.
