An Interview With Speaker of The House John Boehner

Just 24 hours after being sworn in as Speaker of the House, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) sat down with Free Enterprise staff writer Sheryll Poe to discuss repealing the health care law, cutting federal spending and taxes, and curtailing federal regulation.

Free Enterprise: Before you were elected to Congress, you owned a small business. How did that experience shape the way you govern?

John Boehner: When I was running my business [Nucite Sales, a small sales business in the packaging and plastics industry], it was not just my own business; it was my customers’ and suppliers.’ Every day it was more government, more taxes, more regulation. That’s what eventually drove me to come here. I didn’t come here because I wanted to be a congressman. I came here because I wanted to do something. It really boils down to this—the more the government takes from the American people, the less they have to invest in themselves, their families, their communities, or their businesses. We all know the bigger the government gets, the smaller the people get.

FE: Touching on the idea of opportunity, what in your opinion is the current state of American free enterprise?

JB: I think it’s under assault. But the American people and businesses are more engaged with what’s happening in our government than they’ve ever been. I know from experience that the more the American people are engaged in what their government is doing, the more they have a say in what happens every day. The real key over these coming years is to keep the American people and American business as engaged as they were in November.

FE: What policies will you push to spark small business growth and job creation?

JB: Well there are two important issues that we have to deal with. The first is stopping the massive spending spree in Washington, which imperils our future. The second is to get the economy going again. If you want employers to invest in their businesses and in the economy, you’ve got to take away the uncertainty. At the top of that list of uncertainty is Obamacare. It is a job killer because it creates a lot of uncertainty and clearly a lot of additional costs to employers. You’ll see the House move next week to repeal Obamacare. You’ll see us move in the coming months to replace it with commonsense reforms that bring down the cost of health care.

FE: Given that the Senate Majority Leader said that he will not schedule a vote to fully repeal the health care law, what provisions of the law do you expect to target to rein in costs and expand coverage options?

JB: We’re going to do everything we can to make sure this bill is never implemented. As we attempt to do that, you’ll see us move to eliminate the 1099 reporting requirement. You’ll probably see the courts make a decision on the individual mandate. You’ll see us target various aspects of this law. We’re going to go after this bill everywhere we can.

FE: Many of our members are concerned about the administration’s ability to legislate via regulatory agencies. How will the House deal with regulatory creep?

JB: Congress over the last 15 years has not done a good job of oversight of the executive branch as we’re required to do. I’ve been working with all of our now-chairmen over the last several months to make sure they understand that we’re going to do real oversight on Obamacare and its’ proposed rules and regulations, the Dodd-Frank financial services bill, and the EPA and it efforts to impose cap and trade via regulation. I would expect that a lot of the oversight work will lead to what we believe are legislative remedies.

FE: Speaking of the financial regulatory law, what can be done legislatively to mitigate its negative effects?

JB: A series of oversight hearings is clearly the first step. There are some big overreaches in that bill, especially when it comes to the overlapping jurisdictions and the power grab by this new consumer agency that’s being set up. Under Dodd-Frank, you’re going to have banks’ regulatory costs increase exponentially, and you’re also going to see less credit available because of requirements imposed on banks. We can’t expand our economy. We can’t expand employment unless credit is available to our businesses.

FE: Our members are concerned about the deficit and debt and government overspending. How do we get the deficit under control? Longer term, how do you propose the government reduce its debt load?

JB: There’s no business that can exist very long when you spend more than you take in. For 45 of the last 50 years, that’s exactly what’s happened [with the government]. We need to get ourselves on a glide path to a balanced budget, and we need to develop a plan for paying down our debt.

FE: So how do we do that?

JB: First of all, the discretionary spending side is about one-third of our budget. We just need to look at every single line item of the budget and ask ourselves, ‘When you’re borrowing 40 cents for every dollar that you’re spending, do we really need to do this?’ But that’s only one-third of the problem. The big problems are the growing unfunded entitlement programs—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. And you’ll see us this year begin to develop proposals for how we strengthen those programs for the long term.

FE: What are the prospects for tax reform in the 112th Congress, including a lowering of the corporate tax rate?

JB: There’s a lot of interest in fixing the corporate tax problem. We have the second-highest corporate income tax in the world, and as a result, there’s a disincentive for businesses to locate in the United States. I believe that it needs to be reduced. What’s realistic is to look at a lot of the deductions that are in there for a company or a handful of companies or an industry and try to determine if that’s really necessary. There are a lot of loopholes that ought to be looked at. I expect we’ll see something later on this year.

FE: What role do you see the U.S. Chamber of Commerce playing in helping advance pro-growth policies?

JB: Our main job [in Congress] is listening to the American people, and if you look at the Chamber, your biggest job is listening to your members. If we’re listening to our constituents and you’re listening to your members, most days we’re going to be on the same page. That’s good.

FE: What impact will the new Tea Party members have on the House?

JB: They’re all Republicans. The Tea Party supported virtually all the Republican members who were on the ballot. With 87 new members, you bring new energy to the House and I think that’s very helpful.

FE: What lessons have you learned over your 20 years in Congress, and how will you apply those lessons to your new role?

JB: Patience. You need a lot of patience. The Founders created this government in as inefficient a way as possible in order to prevent it from being able to do too much. Having been around here awhile, [I know that] even though we’ve got way too much government, it’s happened over a long period of time. And it’s not going to be turned around overnight. But it’s important for us to turn this big aircraft carrier around.

While I’m not sure what to expect out of the Senate or the White House, I have a pretty clear expectation of what to expect out of the House—an open process that allows all members of either party to participate, offer amendments, and take part in the legislative process. I believe the House works best when it is allowed to work its will. I believe the result from that kind of a process will be the beginnings of the melting of the scar tissue that you see between the two political parties. I also think it will mean more bipartisan bills going to the Senate, which I think would give them a better shot of being enacted.

FE: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve gotten while in Congress?

JB: ‘You never get in trouble for something you don’t say.’ A member passed that on to me when I was a freshman. The other advice I told a freshman a couple of weeks ago is, ‘Never say what you’ll never do.’ This is a process where you’ll never know what you’re going to have to do.

FE: If you weren’t Speaker of the House, or a member of Congress, what would you be doing?

JB: I thought about that the other day. If I hadn’t come here and done this, what would I be doing? Would I still be running my business? My business would have had to go through several iterations to still be in business, so I don’t really know what I would have been doing. I got some advice once from someone who said, ‘Put a legal pad in your desk drawer, and every time you get some crazy idea about what you’ll do after you leave here, write it down.’ And so I’ve done it over 20 years, and I’ve got a page full of really bizarre ideas. It’s an exercise in pushing the blinders back and thinking outside the box.

FE: What’s the craziest thing on the list?

JB: Being commissioner of the PGA Tour.