fixing the country so our children and grandchildren are better off, not worse off. [applause] without a strong economy and without scientific and technological leadership we cannot sustain our military capabilities. the economy and education are national security issues. competing china and india will be a bigger challenge than competing the soviet union during the cold war. i commend to all of you bob compton's film "two million minutes," four years of high school, which shows you vividly two indian high school students two chinese high school students and two american high school students. and at the end of the movie you realize that we are a country aggressively preparing for the 1956 olympics. we will win no gold medals at that level. and i recommend to all of you to go to 2mminutes.com to see just

hobad the -- to see how bad the challenge is. the minimum for us to compete successfully in the next generation with china. yes, it's big. it's also historically true. and the question is whether we have the courage to do it. the scale of change requires all 513,000 elected officials, school board, county commissions, city council, state legislature. not just the presidency. presidency. it requires a tri-partisan approach could not read versus blue majorities. if we are creative and particulate and clear, we might just build a red, white, and

blue majority. we do not need stimulus, we need growth. we do not need temporary fixes, we need real investment and real productivity improvements. it how do we make america the best place in the world for the next factory and the next job? the answer is the opposite of the last's formula. we don't need stimulus, temporary jobs, we need investments to create permanent productivity increases to sustain permanent jobs. for years, the left talked about trickle-down capitalism. let me offer you an observation. trickle-down bureaucracy works even less than trickle-down capitalism. pouring $787 billion in in washington and somehow create jobs is a fantasy of the first order.

not that the people that voted for care. their goal was power and paying off their allies. the [applause] you can tell how badly the stimulus has failed, and let's be clear, this is not something president obama inherited from president bush. he got his stimulus delivered by his robots in congress that did exactly what they were told without reading the bill. he can't turn around now and said that george w. bush made him have. they promised we would peak at 8% unemployment. at friday, we were at 9.4%. their budget is correct because we will have higher unemployment, greater expenses, and less revenue than projected because their plan has already

failed. [applause] let me be clear as a matter of first principle. bureaucrats micromanaging companies does not work. politicians dominating the economy does not work. barney frank and chris dodd are not substitutes for a sound market economy. tim geithner and lawrence summers on not a replacement for warren buffett and bill gates. we have been here before. jimmy carter got us to 13% inflation, 22% interest rates, sliding into the worst recessions since the great depression and every day gasoline rationing. how many of you remember when you could only buy gasoline every other day based on your license plate? this happened. america was reduced by bad policy, bad politicians, and bad

government to rationing gasoline. my good friend pointed out he was only 13 at the time every morning, his father would give him a screwdriver to go out back and change the license plate so the car that needed gas had the right license plate. if you learn that a government rationing led 13-year olds to change license plates, you are a conservative. if you conclude that what we needed was license plate police at every gas station, you are a liberal. it is that straightforward. we have been here before. replacing the rule of law with special interest deals and bankruptcy does not work. having a 31-year-old to take time off to did -- to redesign

the auto industry will not work. he is a symbol of the arrogance and lack of realism of this administration. [applause] heading off a corn and other groups will not work. you can't have capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down. you are going to choose one of the other. i pick capitalism because it has been the most productive, most prosperous, highest quality of life system on the planet. [applause] you have to have the rule of law, not the rule of empathy. you cannot pay off political allies with contract lot if america begins to resemble venezuela and russia in changing the law to favor political allies and punish enemies, our economy will be crippled for a generation. people will not invest where

politicians can rip them off. i d't think that barney frank and chris dodd are good advertisements around the world for the next factory to come to the united states. how do we get back to economic growth? raising taxes does not work. what would work? let's go back to first principles. taxes are a first principle. high taxes kill jobs and growth. low taxes encourage jobs and growth. what would a free on the prize orient the stimulus package be like? first, let's give it to the people that work and the businesses that hire them. if we have a two-year 50% reduction in the social security and medicare tax, you would have an extraordinary explosion of small business, a dramatic increase in unemployment, the money available for businesses to invest without bureaucracy and without politicians. he would have a dramatic

rebound. it would be much better than the theories of the left. i know what the impact would be of a two-year 50% reduction. if you want to compete with china for jobs, match the chinese in capital gains. their rate is zero. [applause] if you want to compete for profitable businesses creating good jobs, adopt the irish tax rate of 12.5% for corporations. if you want to build up capital for investment permanently, abolished the death tax. it is the single biggest hindrance to average people creating capital. 79% of the american people believe is wrong, morally wrong to require somebody to visit the

undertaker and the irs in the same week. let me make a key point. "do not tell me it can be done." i just outlined for you the first four tax cuts that should be the heart of the republican party. [applause] this is precisely what ronald reagan meant in 1975 when he said we cannot have -- we need bold colors. if you go to the country with a genuine free market opportunity and you are prepared to win the argument in the margaret thatcher phrase that first you in the argument and then the vote, and you go to the average small business, you want to reach out to african americans,

koreans, vietnamese, chinese, indians, latinos, you go to every small business and say if we cut your social security tax by 50 percent and cut your match to the employer, would you have more money? would you like it more than having rahm emanuel spend it? you suddenly have a conversation when they could to their accountant and know how much money you are talking about, they will want to go to the second town hall meeting. we need the courage to offer america would be like that reported work, savings, investment, risk taking, and was prepared to take on corrupt politicians and their allies had on. that is the gap we need. [applause] some will say, how do you cut taxes when we have such a big deficit?

big deficits on the left remain -- mean raise taxes. as our budget committee chairman who i believe is the next governor of ohio -- [applause] could report to you, stopping spending is a lot better way to balance the budget. reforming government is a better way to balance the budget. modernizing and replacing bureaucracies and failed programs is a better way to balance the budget. let me say this very directly. i am the only speaker of the house since the 1920's to have offered four consecutive balanced budgets. we pay of $405 billion in federal debt, and i am comfortable yes we can balance the budget again if we have the majority and if we are in charge. [applause]

tax increases can't balance the budget because they crush the economy, which reduces revenues, and they encourage liberals to spend more. if raising taxes worked, new york and california would have balanced budgets, but they don't. the interest groups spend the money as fast as they find it. our record for four years was to control all federal spending, including entitlements, at 2.9% a year for four years, the lowest rate increase since calvin coolidge. don't tell me it can't be done. that means you have to look at how did he do it. we also doubled the size of the national budget impasse the first tax cut in 16 years to accelerate economic growth and increased revenue through prosperity.

we reformed welfare. this was not a negative. 92% of the american people favored welfare reform. by the time we won the argument, we were in a position where two out of every three people went to work or school on welfare, got off medicaid, started paying taxes, their incomes went up, their lives got better. that was real change. we reform medicare when it was scheduled to go broke. only twice since world war two has spending gone down, 1991 and 1995. i think it would be easy for domestic discretionary spending -- i think the country would be grateful to have less pork flowing out of politicians. [applause] today, there are a huge

opportunities for controlling spending. the level of fraud and corruption is stagnant. when you read in new york times story that 97% of the people who retire from along island railroad are getting disability, you are reading about a society so corrupt that theft has become the norm. the costs the u.s. taxpayer in the last decade $250 million. for theft. our estimate -- the book will, of the summer. our estimate is that the minimum level of fraud on medicare and medicaid is between 75 and $125 billion a year. in the south florida, they closed 17 transfusion facilities. five of the 17 were pizza

parlors. nobody understands how bad these governments are, how incompetent they are, how flawed they are, and how many crooks there are who are living off your tax @@@@@@f@ @ n@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real growth is more than just taxes. real growth comes through real encouragement for the private sector combined with real reform of the government bure yok cities. beaurocracies. we should repeal the sarbanes-oxley bill which has not accomplished anything in telling us what went on because every -- but caused every company millions of dollars. and beyond tax policy we need an american energy policy. we need a policy that emphasizes energy in america and recognizes the cheap is government. it's not that we don't have energy sources. the estimate has gone up by 25

fold, 2, 500% the amount of oil available, the natural gas discoveries in the last six yoors because of technology, the supply of natural gas. in oil we have three times the reserves of saudi arabia. brazil proved recently that you can go offshore and they have gone from 10 billion-barrels of reserve to 90 billion-barrels of reserve in the atlantic. we have the largest supply of colon the planet. and the article in the "wall street journal" is fundamentally foolish because the fact is, at the right price we have more coal than saudi arabia has oil and it is an enormous potential asset. we have biofuels in ethanol in growing abundance, new breakthroughs in hydrogen, electric engines, solar. america today in energy is artificially weakened by bad government policies which favor imports over american energy. and let me assert clearly and simply. bowing to the saudi king is not

an energy policy. [applause] for national security, for the national economy, we should keep the money here. we should keep the economy here. american people agree that we need an american energy policy. gree. we launched a petition drive of drill here, drawn-out, payless. it 79 percent of the american people agree that both for economic reasons and national security, we should develop american energy, and that it is a key to our future. the american people reject an american energy tax. this is an energy tax. every american at every level will pay it, and it will export jobs to china.

[applause] the american people reject an environmental protection agency which is exaggerating its power. we should replace the current bureaucratic system at epa with an entrepreneurial system that is fundamentally different. americans reject the liberal principle of paying more to get less. i began reading the waxman bill, and i gave up when i got to the page where they were explaining how they would regulate jacuzzi 's. people believe that 31-year olds can redesign the automobile industry and the bureaucrats in washington need to go down to the level to make sure you only get the right jacuzzi are people that have lost any sense of what made america a unique, and the sense of personal freedom, and the correct answer is to defeat them and let them write a book

for the rest of their life. [applause] i wrote a book which is an outline of a growing conservatism. i used to teach environmental studies. i believe americans want a creative, entrepreneurial, and effective policy for ample energy the money staying in america. finally, i think if we want to compete with china and india, we have to confront the challenge of education. it in 1983, i participated when the rating commission said our schools are so bad that if a foreign power is doing what to their children it would be considered an act of war. nothing much has changed. the pores kids in america are trapped in schools that are bad. they are more likely to go to jail that colle. their lives are limited by the failure to learn.

in 2001, i participated in a report that president clinton and i created. we looked out to 2025 and national security. the greatest threat in march before 9/11 was a weapon of mass destruction going off in an american city probably from terrorists. the second greatest threat to the united states is the failure in science and math education. it is a greater threat than any conceivable conventional war. not much has been done despite all of the bureaucracy and spending. we still have an immense distance to go. rev. al sharpton actually has its correct. i think he is on to a very big idea, that education has to become the first civil right of the 21st century. it now is the time to be bold. if we believe we are endowed by

our creator, with certain unalienable rights, the party that wraps around the declaration of independence and stays firm for being americans, every child deserves to learn. every adult that has been lost by bad education deserves to learn. every first time prisoner deserves to learn. education is a moral, as well as an economic, and national security issue. i would go much further than the president. i favor vouchers. i'd love to have debates over wipeout grants are for -- are good for after 12 grade. there is is on that we can find common ground with president obama. he favors on limited charter schools. if we work actively and aggressively and campaign to pass laws at the state level and

pass federal laws, the reward of those states that adopted on limited charter schools and allowed every parent to have a choice of any school with having -- without having the school's track by unions or by the bureaucracy, we would in a matter of a year or two have finally begun to change the system. the education establishment today is trying to kill charter schools all across america. it is an immoral and destructive program. it places the defense of the incumbent ahead of the lives of the children. we need eight save the children campaign and a save the uneducated adults campaign. we must have a faith-based prison system which has said the lives of thousands of people. we owe it to the 2 million americans currently in prison to recognize that they are endowed by their creator with rights and we have a deep moral obligation

to them. i believe we have a deep moral obligation to say the unborn, but i also believe we have a deep moral obligation to care for children after they have been born and to help every american in every community have a better future. we should go boldly into every community and reach out to every american. i think it is vital that we do that. this administration would destroy the american health-care system. the new york times let the cat out of the bag with its cheerful call for a maximum tax increase. i think the director of the budget should have frightened all of us. i am fundamentally opposed to comparative effectiveness becoming the first step toward rationing, because if we have been endowed by our creator, how can a government bureaucrat tell

you you don't deserve the best possible madison, the best possible procedure, the best possible hospital? i think the court fight of the next few months will be what we have worked for years on. can we in fact develop a health system which is a health-based health reform working on the standards and best procedures, modernizing the system, saving enormous amounts of money, which would allow us to change the system? can we do it without going to a british-style national health- care system, going to this system that blocks americans from getting best practices, and turn power over to a washington bureaucrat to decide whether or not we live? i think it is essential question to the future of our country. the republican party has as great a moral challenge when lincoln was campaigning for

illinois. it has the greatest challenge than it had in 1976 when ronald reagan having lost the nomination was invited by president ford to come down and said we may be fewer than we have been, but we have the moral obligation to reach out to every american, to recruit every person, to make our case for america's future. we stand for a strong national homeland security system. we stand for a solid base. we can offer far better solutions than the left. it i am very proud to be a republican activist. i am committed to american principles. i am committed to freedom for the individual, committed to defending america. what is at stake? the future of this extraordinary experiment in individual human freedom. i hope each of you will leave

here tonight, dedicated for your children, for your grandchildren, to reach out to every person that you can touch to making the decision that we will win in 2010, and in 2012, and in the great tradition of jimmy carter, make this one-term left-wing presidency. let me remind you of a great coach. "do not tell me it can't be done to coat it was true for fdr. it is true for us. thank you and god bless you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> this is the end.

there is going to be a party next door with a wonderful band and a celebration that will go on. obviously, there are great men in the republican party, and nuking rich is one of them. this was a great speech. [applause] as for my contribution, i will get as many as my hollywood peers to join me to get republicans back in the white house. i will never be silent, and no one can threat me to stop me from speaking the truth. [applause] there are quite a lot of people in show business that believe what i believe. we need to speak up for the truths. it may god lead us on the right path into the white house, and

may god bless america. thank you very much everybody. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> there's still time get your copy of c-span's 2009 directory with information on house and senate members, the cabinet, supreme court justices and the nation's governors plus district maps and how to contact committees and caucuses. it's $16.95, online at c-span.org/products or call 1-877-on-c-span. >> up next on "washington journal," your calls and a look at the day's news.

later this morning an oversight hearing on the government's troubled asset relief program also known as tarp. the witness is elizabeth warren who was appointed by congress to oversee the program. and we'll show a portion of the joint economic committee hearing which begins live at 10:00 a.m. eastern until the house of representatives gavels in at 10:30. follow house debate on c-span. .