mr. speaker , i thank the gentlewoman for yielding to me and leading us in this important subject matter .  i appreciate the opportunity to say a few words .  before getting to the economy , i want to add some remarks to those of the gentlewoman from tennessee 's discussion with regard to the middle east .  i would like to paint this image in the mind of the people in the country .  and that is that as we see people demonstrating in the streets of lebanon , when they have made the pledge that they are not leaving the public arena until they are a government governed by themselves and that they are a free people , that magnificent display that is going on in lebanon today , as i watched that , i looked back through my mind 's eye and i asked myself where i have experienced anything like that before ; where i have seen anything like that in history .  it takes me back to the square in prague , back in the early 1990s , after the berlin wall came down .  that was about november 9 when the wall came down , and it echoed into about 1990 , right before the czechs went to the square and stood there with their keys and rattled their keys in the air .  they stood for freedom , until today they are a free people .  that miracle of freedom that echoed across eastern europe in that time was not something anyone predicted .  yet our president stood just outside this capitol building on january 20 and gave his second inaugural address , and even the liberal news media understood there was a bush doctrine , and that was the doctrine of freedom .  he said in that address : `` if you stand for freedom , we stand with you. '' today , we stand with the lebanese people , we stand with the syrians , we stand with the iranians , and we stand with the saudis .  we stand with all people on this planet that yearn for freedom .  another thing that has happened there is that the fear factor has disappeared in lebanon .  when the fear factor disappeared , the people could freely stand in the streets .  when that fear factor can disappear in iran , in syria , in saudi arabia , and around the middle east , they can also come to the streets .  maybe before then .  when that day comes , we will no longer see the habitat that breeds terror , and we will be able to actually stand here today and define a victory in the war on terror , and that is the absence of the habitat that breeds terrorists .  and that is freedom .  but to our economy , which is the discussion tonight .  i characterize it a couple of ways and add to the gentlewoman 's discussion , and that is that our jobs growth in this country has been going on at such a torrid pace that we will soon , within the next 3 months , reach the level of over the last 2 years having had job growth of 1.5 million jobs a year .  that is 1 1/2 million jobs a year .  that is an amazingly fast growth , 3.8 percent growth as the gentlewoman said , but that in the face of the trial lawyers skimming 3 percent off the top .  and that study tells us that they take the first money .  they are standing there taking the first money off our economy .  if we want to grow at 3 1/2 percent , just to sustain the growth we need in our infrastructure and to meet the needs of a growing population , then we have to make up for that 3 percent that goes off the top because of the litigation in this country that is rampant .  we took steps in this congress to rein some of that in .  we sent it over to the senate , where this year they heard us and sent it to the president , and he signed the litigation reform legislation , which will make a difference and make it easier to sustain that kind of growth .  homeownership is at an all-time high .  i think it would compete with anywhere in the world , at 69.2 percent .  that is 69.2 percent .  seven out of ten people you meet on the street live in a home they own or are making payments on .  not a rented home , but an owned home .  what pride in ownership .  and what that does for sending the roots down into our economy and society and keeping our children at home , all of those things are a plus that show up in the bottom line .  inflation is in check .  personal income is up 8.6 percent .  that is so much in the last year that it scares me a little bit , being a 28-year employer ; thinking that if personal income is up 8.6 percent , then i would have to be giving my employees a raise of 8.6 percent every year , which is a pretty torrid pace as well to keep up with employment .  earlier we heard on the floor some remarks that we have a lot of problems with the trade imbalance , and i will not deny we have a trade imbalance .  in fact , a year ago it was minus $ 503 billion a year .  the last announcement came out , the annual report came out february 10 , and that was a minus $ 617.7 billion in imbalance in trade .  so that is about a 20 percent increase in the negative balance of trade that we have .  some of those things work out good for our consumers .  you can afford to buy a winter coat for your little girl cheaper than you could before .  but we can not go on forever letting foreign interests own u.s. assets and holding them for collateral .  so we need to work this thing back to correct the balance of trade , but it is not something that will be done with a policy that says , well , we are concerned about sweat shop labor in el salvador or those kinds of issues that are essentially out of control .  what is in our control in this congress are our tax policy , regulatory policy , and that is what we need to focus on .  that is why i , years ago , in fact 25 years ago , came to the position and the conclusion that we needed to do some real tax reform .  now , we have done good things with the jobs and growth act , and they were the right decisions to bring us back from the bursting of the dot-com bubble that happened about 7 or 8 months before the president was inaugurated the first time ; and then , of course , the september 11 attacks .  i will argue that those two blows to our economy , coupled together , were the greatest blows , the most severe blows ever to the economy of this country ; yet we have recovered .  the stock market is back and all these statistics are up .  but we can do more , and we can do better .  mr. speaker , we can do better because there is another level , another destiny for the united states of america .  we are reaching for that destiny to inspire all people in the world to reach for freedom and liberty and being able to make their own investments and control their own destiny economically , but we can also set a tax policy that ceases to punish the productivity in america .  today , today every day when people go to work and punch the time clock or make the sales calls or throw that bale of hay , uncle sam stands there with his hand out with the first lien on everyone 's labor , on the productivity of america , on your investment interest and on your labor .  ronald reagan once said what you tax you get less of .  so us , in our wisdom , we tax productivity in america instead of consumption .  i suggest we eliminate the irs , the tax code that goes with it , and transfer all of this over to a national sales tax , a consumption tax , a fair tax , h.r. 5 and tax consumption , take all tax off of production and get uncle sam out of the way , standing there at the time clock getting his first and the worker getting his later , and change this whole attitude .  productivity will go up in america .  the irs right now is a trillion dollar drag on an $ 11 trillion economy when we add the cost of funding them , enforcing them , and the disincentives that are in place that people decide i am not going to make that sales call , i am not going to do that extra overtime , i am not going to make that investment in that farm or industrial factory because the tax burden is too high .  if we take the tax off all productivity , everybody gets the money they earned in their paycheck .  take-home pay goes up 56 percent under a national sales tax , and items on the shelf , their price goes down by an average of 22 percent because there is an imputed cost in everything that is sold .  businesses that provide goods for sales have to impute the cost of the federal tax in that item .  that is an average of 22 percent .  so , for example , if there is a japanese-made mazda that is imported from japan sitting on the dealer 's lot at $ 30 , 000 , and pick your american brand sitting on the other side of the street with a $ 30 , 000 sticker price , we remove the federal tax that is imputed into the american made because it is imputed in the japanese made overseas .  we will see that $ 30 , 000 american-made car go down to $ 23 , 600 , and the japanese car is still at $ 30 , 000 .  by the time we add the sales tax back in , the american car is at $ 30 , 400 or so , but the japanese car is around $ 39 , 000 .  we have approximately a $ 9 , 000 advantage on those two vehicles of equivalent value that were selling competitively at $ 30 , 000 each .  we change the tax policy , and competition drives the price out of the american made and now we have an advantage to market american goods .  mr. speaker , that is one of the ways that we can address this imbalance of trade because we will build more products here .  if we sell more of our products here , that means the jobs that produce them are here .  if we import less from foreign countries , that means the jobs that produce those imports are going to have to be producing exports to go to other countries .  we can repair this balance of trade with a national sales tax , a fair tax .  we can change this $ 617.7 billion of red ink to a plus number , and while we are doing that , we remove the penalty for savings and investment .  so the capital investment the gentlewoman talked about that really is a great indicator of where our economy is going , capital investment will not be punished .  form the capital , and we will see capital go into technology , research and development , higher ed , all of the things that improve the productivity of the american worker .  by the way , we must improve the productivity of the american worker .  we are seeing industrial equipment go overseas as well .  and as we see that punch press or lathe going to a developing country and they train their workers how to use that equipment , we will never get those jobs back again .  we do not want to compete for the wages that are being paid there either , but we can move our people to the top side with education , research and development and technology capital investment .  they have got to produce more .  we can do that with technology and a national sales tax , and fix this balance of trade .  we are on the right track , but we can do more .  if we go to a national sales tax , we will take america to another destiny yet with our economy .  mr. speaker , i urge the president 's commission and this congress to take a good look at real tax reform , not tweak it around the edges .  we have done that .  we have positioned ourselves well to take america to its next level of destiny , and i am looking forward to the 109th congress for being a part of that .  