Dan Burton: “I know I get a big kick, Mr. Speaker, out of listening to my colleagues come down here and talk about the sky falling.…”

“I know I get a big kick, Mr. Speaker, out of listening to my colleagues come down here and talk about the sky falling. After 9/11 we had an economic downturn and tourism suffered and all the ancillary industries suffered, airlines suffered and the economy started going down. We had scandals on Wall Street, and those scandals led to further economic problems. President Bush suggested to the Congress that the way to stimulate economic recovery and growth was the same thing that President John F. Kennedy did back in the 1960s, and that was to cut taxes. And so we cut taxes. And because we cut taxes, there has been growth in the economy for the past several years. The unemployment rate has been down. The economy has been growing. Everything has been going well. Now we have been hit with some other things that are very, very disconcerting. We had the Katrina hurricane, and we had another hurricane that hit Florida recently. These hurricanes are going to cost a lot of money. Some people think it will cost $60, $70, or $80 billion before it is over. It will not be the $250 billion that was talked about, but it will be around $50, $60, or $70 billion at least. Now I would like to say to my Democrat colleagues, for whom I have great respect, to join with us in the next few days in passing a cost- savings bill, a cost-savings bill that will cut about $50 billion out of spending.…”