Congressman Adam Putnam Radio Address
  August 3, 2007

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, this is Adam Putnam. I represent Florida’s 12th Congressional District, and I serve as Chairman of the House Republican Conference.

This weekend, the Democrat Congress will head home with little to show for their first seven months in the majority but a string of broken promises, misguided priorities, and record-low approval ratings.

In fact, it’s now referred to as the “Post Office Congress” because all they do is pass bills that rename post offices. The irony is that despite their appreciation for the mail, it’s clear Washington Democrats haven’t gotten a single message from the American people.

Here’s what I mean:

This week, it was reported that U.S. consumer confidence has risen to its highest level since before the Sept. 11 attacks, and yet the Democrat Congress has already voted to raise your taxes by nearly half a trillion dollars.

We have the best scientists in the world and the newest and most innovative of fuel-based technologies at our disposal, yet Americans are still shelling out three bucks a gallon at the pump because the Democrat Congress has failed to put forward an energy policy that actually generates energy.

In less than five months, 77 million baby boomers will start retiring. Not only has the Democrat Congress done nothing to address the runaway entitlement spending that will make it impossible for us to keep our promises to our citizens – they actually created ten new entitlements this month alone.

The most obscene of these is a 250 billion dollar program that provides taxpayer-funded health insurance, originally intended for low-income children, to people making upwards of 82,000 dollars a year. Democrats pay for it with 50 billion in tax increases on the middle class and the largest cut to Medicare in history, slashing 200 billion dollars from programs that help the lowest of low-income seniors. Talk about Democrats robbing from the poor.

Even more disconcerting is the fact that, during this time of heightened threat to our homeland, the Democrat Congress has failed to properly modernize our intelligence gathering laws – thereby allowing red tape to protect foreign terrorists.

Finally, there are the tens of thousands of brave young Americans who are putting their lives on the line every day in a brutal, fast-evolving battle zone in Iraq. In recent weeks, we have seen several reports that our military has achieved real progress in clearing out the most violent parts of the country, putting the enemy on the defensive.

Yet just this week, James Clyburn, the leading Democrat whose job it is to win his party votes on the House floor, said that good reports of this nature are, and I quote, a real big problem for Democrats. Congressman Clyburn’s remarks were indefensible – they were an affront to our servicemembers and they revealed an unfortunate truth: that Democrats are politically invested in failure in Iraq.

The bottom line is this: the new direction Washington Democrats promised the American people has become a maze of their own making and House Republicans have held them accountable at every twist and turn.

For our part, we share with taxpayers a genuine commitment to common sense conservative principles. Republicans believe that government can be responsive to the needs of working families without having to spend a single dollar more of your hard-earned money than is necessary while sparing no effort to preserve your freedom and protect your security.

Americans are right to take from the disappointments of the last seven months that Washington Democrats don't have what it takes to lead on pressing issues and make tough choices. These really are the dog days for the Post Office Congress.

Thank you for listening.

[NOTE: On the evening the radio address was released, the House passed – with mostly Republican support – legislation to modernize FISA and give our intelligence community the tools it needs to do its job and protect our nation. For Chairman Putnam’s comment on House Republicans closing the terrorist loophole, click here.]