Three Major Crises
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. GIMENEZ. Mr. Speaker, one thing has been made absolutely clear in last's month abysmal jobs report: More government spending, bigger mandates and regulations, incentivizing people to stay on unemployment, and punishing States that encourage small mom and pops to reopen is not the way to Build Back Better. It is time for us to pursue policies that put Americans back to work.
All the so-called experts and economic forecasters wanted to believe so hard that the massive $1.9 trillion spending package that the Speaker and President Biden rammed through Congress was going to be the answer. But the truth always prevails. That is why, for the first time in Congress, Democrats actually joined Republicans on a major piece of legislation in voting against that sham of a bill. But it passed anyway.
When Republicans stood up on this floor to explain line item by line item what was wrong with that bill and why this was the wrong approach, we got attacked by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle for everything imaginable. But once again, we were proven right. The Speaker and President Biden were proven wrong.
Now, they are wanting to do this all over again with infrastructure. The current infrastructure proposal being put forward not only adds trillions of dollars in spending on top of the $1.9 trillion Congress has already approved to be spent in the previous spending spree, but now the solution is paying for it by raising taxes. Once again, the American people are being lied to about who is actually going to be affected by those tax hikes.
The spinmasters are trying to paint a picture that equates the big evil word ``corporation'' as big-box players and tech behemoths such as Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook. But here is the truth, the term ``corporation'' is really only a tax designation for a business entity. Corporations include your local mom-and-pop restaurant. It includes the local corner street pharmacy. It includes the farms that supply the local farmers markets. It is the local fishermen, the family-run dance studio, the store that sells football uniforms to the local high school team, the music instructor helping prepare kids for the next concert, and the guy who scraped together his earnings and started a plumbing business.
While the progressive left wants to take swipes at major billionaire companies through extreme taxation, they are bringing all of us along with them. We are all going to be paying more.
At a time when our economy has continued to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, we should be encouraging small businesses to reopen, rehire workers, and spur our local economies, not punishing them with more taxes and more regulations.
America's small businesses and our middle-class workers deserve much better than this. I know we can and will do better if my colleagues across the aisle choose to work with us in earnest. Let's stop this political grandstanding for the majority and get to work.
Republicans are waiting, and we are willing.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source