Transcript (thanks to David Weston):
I thank the Speaker. We’ve heard the economic reports. Over ten million Americans out of work. 7.2 per cent unemployment. Some say that unemployment could go to 10 per cent. We could be looking at twelve million Americans out of work. The productive capacity of this nation, is not being used. It’s withering.
We have to put America back to work.
Our program actually is pretty simple - jobs, jobs, jobs! Put people back to work with good paying jobs.
How do you that? You go back to that old time religion of FDR, reflected in the New Deal. He rebuilt America.
There’s over 1.6 trillion dollars in infrastructure needs that are unmet, that can’t be met by local or state governments. The stimulus package that we heard discussion about, does want to do something about addressing infrastructure. That’s significant. We should support that.
But we also have to look at our experience, and we don’t want to be TARPed again [Troubled Assets Relief Program] in this Congress. Because this Congress voted for a 350 billion dollar bailout of banks.
I didn’t vote for it, but the House and the Senate voted for it.
And it resulted in the banks, using the money not to help people to stay in their homes, but in using the money to buy other banks, and to take over other banks. They hoarded the money. There is a credit freeze.
We cannot - we must take notice of that. I know Chairman Franks is going to do that with the next tranche of TARP money, try to make sure money goes to keeping people in their homes. That’s a positive step in the right direction.
But Congress must take note of its experience in the bail-out, when we’re fashioning a so-called stimulus package, because we want to make sure that the money gets to the people who need it the most. And it gets to people quickly.
Now some say that you can do that through tax cuts. Well, actually, with people being afraid of the economy getting worse, they are holding on to their money. Look at the Christmas retail returns. Sales are down dramatically. People don’t want to spend, if they have it.
So how do you get the economy moving again?
Tax cuts? Taxes carried forward? Given businesses that made bad choices a chance to get more money, so they can hold on to it? No. We have to prime the pump of the economy.
And the way you prime the pump of the economy is that you create millions of jobs. Putting people back to work - re-building our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our sewer systems - that’s infrastructure.
But there are some broader issues here we have to look at. The banks have shown that they can’t be trusted with the American economy. That’s generally been the case, but now it’s out in the open - 350 billion dollars later.
In 1913, the money power of the country was taken away from the people. By Constitutional Privilege it belongs with the Congress, but it was given up in the Federal Reserve Act. The Federal Reserve is no more ‘Federal’ than Federal Express, but yet it has the power to determine the direction and use of money in our economy.
If we take that power back and put the Federal Reserve under Treasury, we start to be in a position of being able to control monetary policy on behalf of the United States people.
We also have to address the issue of the Fractional Reserve System, which is how banks create money out of thin air. And then, as they do that they have created the conditions where we have this kind of Ponzi scheme collapsing - banks and the hedge funds working together.
So we have to halt the banks’ privilege to create money, by ending the Fractional Reserve System. Past monetised credit would be converted into US government money, and banks would act as intermediaries accepting deposits, and loaning them out to borrowers - fine.
But then, with the ability to control our fortunes, we then, once we control money again, we spend the money into circulation and on infrastructure. Not just the physical infrastructure, but also on health care. We not only can address housing needs, rebuilding America’s infrastructure, but we can also get people the health care they need in this country. We can enable children to stay in school, or to go back to school.
We really have the opportunity to take control of our own destiny again. But we can’t go back to the same old, same old. ‘Trickle down’ economics, the trickle never gets down! The invisible hand of the market place is in the pockets of the American taxpayers.
The invisible hand of the market place is in the pockets of the American taxpayers!
Let’s rebuild America. Let’s reclaim our economic destiny and let’s do it as a Congress united, working with the new Administration. Thank you.