By Rep. Todd Tiahrt, Special to The Kansas City Star

Salvation from our economic woes is what the Obama administration wanted us to believe the stimulus plan would be. The unemployed would be given jobs, and not just a few thousand, but 3 million to 4 million. A trillion dollars of borrowed money and all would be well. Even our electric bills would be lowered. Such were the promises from our president.

Contrary to promises of a new beginning for workers, another 1.5 million Americans lost their jobs in the weeks and months after the enactment of the stimulus bill. And we saw $1.3 trillion of private wealth evaporate in the first quarter alone. With just two quarters remaining this year, the Democrats’ stimulus plan is miserably failing the people and needs to be shut down.

Even European governments are looking for a way to stop borrowing so much money. After a two-day summit in Brussels, 27 European Union leaders agreed it is time to clean up budget deficits acquired while fighting the financial crisis. “There is a clear need for a reliable and credible exit strategy,” they said in a statement. Perhaps they understand more clearly how increasing debt is unsustainable.

That is why I introduced the Repeal the Stimulus Act of 2009 along with several other legislative initiatives to help get us out of this quagmire. Thanks to unprecedented federal spending, we and our children are hundreds of billions of dollars in further debt to China. The spending and the borrowing must stop.

True economic stimulus puts money back into the economy by returning more to individuals (that’s you and me) and small businesses (the institutions that generate up to 80 percent of the new jobs in this country).

Economic recovery does not come by creating generous government programs and bureaucratic bastions. A lasting recovery comes by growing the economy from the ground up rather than pursuing bungling notions of growing the economy from the government down.

By rescinding unobligated money in the Democratic stimulus spending bill, we would save taxpayers from borrowing an estimated quarter of a trillion dollars. This is money the government wanted to take from us but could not because we ran out. So our leaders decided to borrow from countries such as China, and when that failed, officials resorted to printing a trillion dollars.

Under the leadership of President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we are expanding programs we do not need with borrowed money we cannot afford.

Despite unanimous support from House Republicans, Democrats voted against my proposals to put an end to out-of-control spending plaguing Washington. It has happened multiple times in committee meetings and on the House floor. The outcome is the same: Democrats refuse to stop the spending.

There is a better solution. Our government could provide more opportunity to create and keep American jobs. We know when innovative ideas get into the marketplace our economy grows. We should be reforming regulations by evaluating them with a cost-benefit analysis, changing our tax policy to welcome capital back into our economy and revising our litigation systems.

When workers can keep more of their income, they spend it, save it or invest it.

Spending generates activity in private markets. Saving creates more money for loans. Investing provides resources for capital investments that grow businesses and create jobs. All three yield good news for our economy.

A few of us are taking on this fight in Congress, but we need a grassroots movement, a tide of public sentiment. Repealing bailouts, stimulus spending and Soviet-like takeovers of private industries will happen only when the people decide they no longer believe the president’s costly, unattainable promises. Let’s place our optimism in opportunity, not oppressive government.

U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican from Goddard, is chairman of the House Economic Competitiveness Caucus and serves as the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies.