W. Todd Akin

My point was, if you punish the business, you shouldn't be surprised if there are no jobs there. The business is the one that hires people. It's not that complicated. There is a direct connection between employer and employee. What you…

I want to talk a little bit about unemployment. I want to talk about the economy and what the solutions are to this problem. This isn't very complicated, but people try to make it more complicated than it needs to be. ... the problem of…

Now I would suggest that the Democrats and their policies are actually destructive to the economy. I don't think it's a coincidence that if you look at the 10 cities in America that have the highest percentage of people below the poverty…

Simply put, the legislation would ensure that the Navy can enter into a multiyear procurement contract for F/A-18E/F/G aircraft, which would save the Navy and taxpayers almost $600 million. The Navy plans to buy 124 of these aircraft…

Wow. And then, of course, the economic uncertainty as you're saying. When you see the government taking over the auto industry and the insurance industry and then going to take over the health care industry, that makes people that…

Yes. Well, if you recall, in 2001, the Republicans inherited a recession. So they had to do something about it. As President Bush was running for office the first time, he said, what we've got to do is cut taxes and cut spending. So what…

So what we have seen, according to what you're saying, is very clear. First of all, you've got the tremendous, tremendous level of spending, which is exactly the wrong thing. And what is happening with that tremendous level of spending…

What we have is foreigners basically bailing us out. As long as they're willing to do that. But pretty soon they're going to say, If you want us to bail you out some more, you're going to have to pay me more interest. And boy, it's going…

Not only have we failed to do anything proactive, but the Democrats have made it absolutely clear that they will not renew these tax cuts. They're not going to do this. So we know that we're going to end up with the biggest tax increase in…

So wait. Now you're really making a case. What I'm hearing you saying is there is a systematic series of decisions which literally creates unemployment. They are government decisions. It is worse in the West because the government controls…

The question I have is: How does the President think he can get away with doing this? I mean, all of these people that work in these different companies, when those decisions are made and they get rid of jobs--we were doing the same thing…

the government is not the thing that creates the jobs. And what we've seen is, for 18 months, a policy that says the government is going to take over everything. They fired the President of General Motors. They're going to take over…

I said the government wants to take over autos, they want to take over insurance, they want to take over student loans, they want to take over flood insurance, they want to take over whatever it is, a sixth of the economy with socializing…

What you have going on here is a systematic attack on the fabric of what America really is. And you have a belief system if there is a consistency in Federal policies, and that consistency is that the government is taking everything over…

Well, I'll tell you something. I sometimes wish the Democrats would just learn from themselves and from their own mistakes, you know, because here is a guy, Henry Morgenthau, who was a contemporary of little Lord Keynes, and he tries this…

Well, I am really interested in what you're going to say because it seems to me that there is a war on Missouri going on and a war on free enterprise going on, but I didn't know about the war on the West, so I am all ears. Please.

You know, there is one thing that is awful hard to argue with--just the plain numbers. In this year of 2008, Bush was President, but Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House. This was the worst spending year of the Bush administration. Did…

The only problem is, it's not working. Now, Republicans, and myself particularly here on the floor, talked a year ago about the proposals to create jobs and what the Democrats were going to do with the economy, and we said it's not going…

In 2008, that was Bush's worst year--$459 billion. Now take a look at the first Obama year. I mean talk about a runaway deficit. This cannot continue without the Nation's literally falling apart economically. So what you are seeing is the…

If you hammer businesses, then you're not going to have jobs. If you destroy companies, then there are not going to be jobs because jobs come from companies. And if you hate companies and you hate the private sector, then how are you going…

That's why I said I have a hard time understanding how you do this with a straight face. We've just heard of all these fantastic Democrat programs that are working fantastically, that are going along, and everything is fine. Yet we're…

Oh, man. It wasn't just the Bush administration that brought Hurricane Katrina. It brought every bad thing that ever happened in the whole world.

Let's try and speculate a little bit. Let's say the income for the whole year, they make a hundred bucks. So what does this mean, 91 percent? If their income is a hundred dollars for the year, what does that mean? That means they've got an…

Yes. So the point is, what do we do here in America? We basically have to stop thinking that the Federal Government is God and that it's going to solve every problem. We've got the Federal Government now, they're into the automobile…

I think you're absolutely right. The idea, though, that we can bring the level of spending that we've got going on under control by just trying to get efficiency, I think that's probably optimistic. I think what we have to do is decide…