Speaker
John Boehner (
R-OH) delivers his five-point policy vision to reset
America’s economy. He discusses how the emerging energy boom in the
United States offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our country to reset its economic foundation by addressing the debt, reforming the tax code, fixing the legal system, reining in excessive regulations, and strengthening the country’s educational system to empower
Americans and renew our country’s future.
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Partial transcript:
ARTHUR BROOKS:
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I’m
Arthur Brooks, president of the
American Enterprise Institute. I’m delighted to welcome you all here today for this important address from the
Speaker of the House John Boehner.
It’s a distinct honor to introduce my friend, John Boehner, back to AEI. As most of you know, he’s the
61st speaker of the
House. When he was first elected in
1990, he had little idea what his trajectory was going to lead to, I dare say. He served as the House minority leader, the
House majority leader, the chairman of the
House Committee on
Education and Workforce, the chairman of the
House Republican Conference, and on and on – one leadership position after the other, up to the highest leadership position in the House.
He’s known not just as someone who holds leadership positions, but who is authentically a good and courageous and fair leader.
Today, he’s here to discuss a five-point plan for the
Congress to reset America’s economy.
Please join me in welcoming Speaker John Boehner. (
Applause.)
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH): Well, good afternoon everyone and let me just say how happy I am to be back at AEI. You know, I last spoke here shortly before I became speaker. And it’s a job I love, but looking back, a job
I never really thought I’d have. You know, after I first got elected to
Congress, I thought, you know,
I’ll probably do this for about 10 years and go back and run my business or do something else, but I’m still here and still on the journey for the same reason many of you are. Each of us was fortunate that we had a chance to succeed, a chance to realize our potential. And our work isn’t finished until we pass that same chance on to our kids and theirs.
And I’ve got some ideas about how to do that, and today I’d like to share those with you.
But let me start by picking up where I left off when I was here nearly four years ago. That day I talked about how we would run the House differently, differently than the
Republicans had run it in the past and how
Democrats were running it then. And today I can report that the people’s House is more open and more transparent than ever.
For the first time, legislative data is posted online in
XML and in bulk. House proceedings and committee hearings are all streamed online. You can even bring your iPad to the House floor, which was prohibited in the past. Earmarks used to crash our coffers at the rate of about 10,
000 at a time and they’ve been eliminated. The cost of the House has been reduced by 13.8 percent. And we’ve considered at least 33 bills under an open process. And consider that my predecessor had no bills on the floor under an open process. So we’re on the right track, but much of the credit goes to the people in the institution who do all the heavy lifting.
All of this is about delivering what my friend
Newt Gingrich calls a
21st-century, citizen-directed government, one that is smaller, less costly, and more accountable to the people we serve. And it’s why, despite being the minority party here in
Washington, Republicans have gotten some important things done. We cut total federal spending two years in a row, which hasn’t happened since the
Korean War. We’ve completed major trade agreements with
Colombia,
Panama, and
South Korea; made it easier to pay for college by tying student loan rates to the markets instead of some political whim; improved our job training system so more people can gain high-quality skills to advance in our economy. We’ve protected
99 percent of
American people from an increase in their taxes.
Now, there’s a lot more that we can do, and our focus continues to be on what we call better solutions – solutions to help get people back to work, lower costs at home, and restore opportunity for all Americans. And to that end, we’ve passed now over 380 bills that are pending in the
United States Senate – 380, almost all of them done on a bipartisan basis. Dozens of those would improve our economy and improve the prospects for jobs in our country.
Speaker of the House John Boehner on resetting America’s economic foundation
- published: 18 Sep 2014
- views: 3273