Jobs and the Economy

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Thank you, Congresswoman Fudge. It is indeed an honor to serve in Congress with you ladies who are all champions of regular working people and poor people of this country, regardless of geographical boundaries, and I salute you, in this age of women that we are living in.

I remember, Madam Speaker, just within the last 17 months, the leader of the Republican Party said publicly that he hopes that President Obama fails. Do y'all remember that? It was well publicized. It was not coming from Minority Leader Boehner of the House, and it was not uttered by Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader in the Senate. It was uttered by the true leader of the Republican Party, and that is my good friend, Rush Limbaugh, who for every day, 5 days a week, 3 or 4 hours a day, sends that same message out to Americans who are hooked on that show, he sends it out to them relentlessly, and they remember it and they act on it.

But they are not the only ones who have acted on it. It has been the followers in the Senate who have acted upon it, and it has been the followers here in the House of Representatives on the other side of the aisle who have followed his leadership, and they have embarked upon this strategy of obstruction: Just say no. I don't care who it hurts. If it hurts the unemployed, fine.

We won't let it happen where they can get some relief. If it happens to a small business man or woman, we don't care on the other side of the aisle, because what we want is failure.

And why do the folks on the other side of the aisle in both the House and the Senate feel so strongly about that? It's just simply the naked grab for power. They want to resume control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and they want to retake the White House so they can continue to do all of the things that ran this economy into the ditch; those things being characterized by trickle-down economics, the old Ronald Reagan trickle-down economics plan. And trickle-down economics resulted in eventually, over the last 10 years, 8 million jobs lost in America, 495,000 of those jobs in manufacturing sent overseas due to tax policies to benefit the rich and the wealthy.

So when President Reagan said it's morning in America, he was not referring to the working men and women in this country. He was referring to the gilded, the upper crust, the royalty, if you will. He wasn't referring to all of the little people. He was talking about his friends. And that policy has been followed relentlessly, and it has had a devastating effect on the men and women who try to work for a living in this country. So as a result, our economy has gone into, I don't want to say a ditch, but in a deep, dark hole. And it didn't take us long to get there, but it's taking us some time to climb out of.

That's why this discussion that we're having tonight is so important. Jobs for the American people, closing tax loopholes that benefit the rich and the wealthy and incentivize their movement of jobs offshore; those things must come to an end.

I know we have additional time, but I am going to yield back now to our anchor, the Honorable Marcia Fudge.

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