Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, last year, the American taxpayer got on the hook for a whole series of bailouts to huge corporations and prop-ups for quasi-governmental organizations and hundreds of billions in stimulus programs. It reminds me of a layer cake, a seven-layer cake.
When I was growing up in Athens, Georgia, I went to Alps Road Elementary School. On the way home every day, when I would walk home, I would pass the Beachwood Bakery. Sometimes they'd put a big layer cake in the front window. A layer cake was so cool because it would have chocolate and then a layer of vanilla and a layer of almond cake, and it was all this delicious stuff, but it was interesting because one was stacked on top of the other. That's what we're seeing in the Pelosi deficit Congress:
Last year, a $29 billion for Bear Stearns bailout in March; $168 billion in May for a bailout; $200 billion in July for Fannie Mae; $700 billion in October; $85 billion for AIG in September; then this year, $790 billion for a stimulus package. Well, you would think that some of that would be coordinated with last year's appropriations bill which we're about to pass, but instead, it is all layered, just like that cake.
If you look at this bill, there is a 13 percent increase for agriculture spending, 11 percent for congressional spending, 13 percent for transportation, and 11 percent for Commerce, State and Justice. Now, that sounds okay. It's a little bit out of whack with what the American family is going through, so that's bad. Then when you realize that this is not coordinated with the stimulus bill of $790 billion, which we just passed, if you look at that, then agriculture is actually up 45 percent; Commerce, State and Justice are up 41 percent; labor 91 percent; transportation 139 percent.
Overall, these accounts in these seven appropriations bills have gone up 80 percent when combined with the stimulus package, and the stimulus package in these areas is not something that is going to be hardcore job creation. There is not enough public works to it.
