May 9, 2006- A Need for Self-Made Leaders, Not Derivative Leaders

HON. MARCY KAPTUR
 OF OHIO
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2006

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Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I have been asking myself why thePresident of the United Statesreally can't get a grip on policies that would help America become energy independenthere at home. Last week, as we were looking at rising gasoline prices allacross our country, he suggested that we import, import more ethanol.

I thought about that comment and his whole administration's lack ofattention to energy independence for our country, and I sort of sat there at mydesk and thought, why would the President behave this way? And I thought a lotabout how we form our personalities and when we take whatever occupation we getinto as adults, why we behave the way we do.

There are some personalities that result from experiences that make you self-made,and then there are those personalities that I call derivative personalities,and their behaviors result from a different set of experiences, so when theyget in a job they really can't command and direct, because they have neverreally done it themselves.

Here is an example. I grew up in a family where our mother made ourclothing. We didn't have a lot of money, so we learned how to scrimp, and welearned how to invent and to create. And those are learned skills.

The President grew up in a family that was extraordinarily wealthy. I wouldguess that they bought most of their clothes. In fact, I can remember when thePresident, his father, didn't even know how much socks cost in the store duringone of his Presidential races. They always bought everything. They never made.They had enough assets, he inherited enough, that they really didn't have tolearn how to be self-made. So he doesn't have a mind that lends itself tocreativity necessarily.

We came from a family where we ran our own small business. Our dad made hisown products. We made our own sausages, our own meatloafs, our own pickles. Dadhad to do everything himself. He had to figure out how to finance his business.

We have a President who inherited his wealth. Everything that he did, he hadthis soft landing pad. He failed a number of times in businesses that heinherited from his own family, but he never really paid the consequences,because someone was always there to catch him and to refinance him, even in thepurchase of the baseball team that he owned, which then he eventually sold andused those dollars to get elected President of the United States. Most Americanfamilies don't have that kind of landing pad.

In our family, we had to earn our way to go to college, and we had to getgood grades, because there was nobody there that was going to save you. Nobodyin our family had ever gone to college before. I had to keep good grades tokeep a scholarship up for the scholarship I did receive.

But the President's education was paid for by his family. In fact, he wasadmitted to schools, based on his grades, that most Americans could never getadmitted to.

I think what these kinds of experiences do is create a different kind ofpersonality, a personality of people who are self-made and they know how tocreate, versus a personality that is more derivative and sometimes can't solveproblems, and they look to someone else to solve them.

So if we have an energy problem in America, the President would lookto somebody else. And he says, well, let's import the ethanol. He doesn'treally think about creating a whole new industry here at home and using theGovernment of the UnitedStates to help create that industry.

That is why he has proposed cutting programs. At the same time out of oneside of his mouth he talks about energy addiction, but then is trying to usethe Government of the United Statesto create a new energy future for America. He really doesn't knowwhat to do with it when he is in command of it.

It was actually Congress that adopted the first energy title to a farm bill.It didn't come from the administration. And if you look at every single budgetthat he has offered, he talks about energy independence, and then he cuts theprograms that would lead us in that direction.

What Americareally needs is a new biofuels industry as a complement to other forms of powerthat we can create. But we need self-made people to help move America in thatdirection. Many of our farmers are figuring it out. We need programs to helpthem finance the development of the new infrastructure and the productionfacilities that are necessary to green up this industry. They need thePresident's help to do it so they are not bought out by Big Oil and bycompanies that really don't want them to bring up this new industry. But thePresident really doesn't know how to create it. His Secretary of Agricultureisn't doing it.

We could have programs like title IX in USDA funded at $1 billion. Westruggle to even get $25 million or $23 million in our committee, which islaughable in terms of a trade deficit in oil of over $60 billion and counting.

The President's Cabinet members are not energy-focused. The Secretary ofDefense said energy isn't his job. He runs the largest instrument in thiscountry that uses fuel, and energy independence isn't his job? He said that tous in committee.

Mr. Speaker, we need people in our country and the Presidency and thisCongress who are self-made, not derivative, to lead America to a new independent energyage.