GOP Freshman Hour

Floor Speech

Mr. DUFFY. I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado yielding, and I commend my colleagues for your hard work and the focus that you have all had on jobs and job creation and legislation that's actually going to help move our economy forward.

I think we're in a unique time in American history. If you look at where we're at and the level of competition that we are under from countries like China, India, Mexico, Vietnam, Brazil, this is a whole new environment that we haven't seen before. It's not 1950, it's not 1980, it's not even the 1990s. This is a different form of competition.

If we're going to be successful in this new environment, we have to do it right because if we get it wrong, you see massive unemployment.

And as we came into this recession, I think the American people said to the President, We are willing to go along with you, Mr. President, if you tell us that we could spend a trillion dollars and from that you can take the pain away, you can create jobs with that kind of spending. If you tell us that we can pass a health care bill and that's going to create jobs, we can pass more regulation and that's going to create jobs, okay, Mr. President. We'll go along with you because the pain is too great.

When one of my family members is out of work and I see the pain and suffering in their family, it's worth it, Mr. President. I will go with you.

Now, this is a path that we haven't traditionally gone down because we're an economy, we're a society of free markets and free enterprise where we look to the individual who invests, works hard, innovates, and creates wealth, creates opportunity, creates jobs in their community.

But we're willing to go for a while and say, Let's try it out, Mr. President.

A couple years down the road, we now look back and say where are we. Are we better off today than we were 2 1/2 , 3 years ago? And I think if you ask the American people, they will give you a resounding, No, we're not.

So what we're doing here today is saying let's go back to our great history. Let's go back to our roots of free markets. Let's try to streamline the regulatory process that this government has given the private sector. Let's make sure we free the American people, we free the entrepreneurial spirit. And if we do that and we engage in this new competitive environment against China, India, Mexico, I don't care who it is, if you set America free, we will compete, we will win, we will thrive, we will grow, and we will prosper.

That's why we in this House have passed bills with bipartisan support that advocate for free markets. And listen, some people come at us and say, You don't want regulation. That's not true. We want smart regulation. They'll say, listen, the Tax Code needs to be reformed. And we'll say, yes, absolutely it needs to be reformed. We want to make sure that there aren't loopholes that don't make big corporations and big industry and the wealthy not pay their fair share.

We were the first ones in Washington to say let's root out the loopholes. That was in our budget that we said let's root it out. And it was only after we did it did we see the President come out and say he wanted to follow. And I will tell him that I'm a willing partner to join him in tax reform.

I think as we look at what's happened here, as one of the Members here said, we sent over 22 bills to the Senate. And with that, the Senate hasn't taken up any of them. And as the gentleman from Illinois noted, at least the Senate should take them up and give them a vote. And if they want to vote them down, that's okay. But at least take them up and give them a vote.

They took the President's bill up, gave it a vote and on a bipartisan effort it failed.

So my point to my colleagues and to the American people is that if we are going to move our economy forward, we have to tap in to the principles and the ideals that made this country great. That is what this freshman class is talking about tonight. That's what we've been talking about for the last 10 months.

I look forward to the work with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. As you might notice, I'm on the left side here. I'm on the Democrat side of the aisle. I'm willing to work with my friends on both sides. But let's get it done. Let's not do it for parties. Let's do it for the American people, putting them back to work.

With that, I thank my colleague from Colorado for yielding.

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