Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Floor Speech

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, well, Washington, D.C., is focused on a lot of things these days. The debate over health care continues outside of committee hearings, and we hear news reports that health care reform is being rewritten in the back hallways of this building somewhere.

We also heard today that leading Members of the Senate on the Democratic Party introduced a national energy tax, the so-called cap-and-trade legislation, that will raise the cost of utilities on working families and small businesses across this country by dramatic amounts. And of course, the President is making plans to travel to Copenhagen later this week on an economic development mission for the city of Chicago.

But I've got to tell you, as a constituent of mine from Alexandria, Indiana, that's with us today, Mr. Speaker, might well attest, when I'm back home, folks aren't talking about how we can pass legislation that raises utility rates or how we can pass legislation that will lead to a government takeover of health care paid for by hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes and individual mandates, and they're not much talking about the Olympics. What folks back in Alex are talking about is jobs. They're talking about what in the world this Congress is going to do to put America back to work.

Now, back in February when Congress passed the so-called stimulus bill, Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood on this floor and said, This bill is about jobs, jobs, jobs. The administration suggested that if we didn't borrow nearly $1 trillion from future generations of Americans and spread it out in the so-called stimulus spending, that unemployment would reach 8 percent.

In fact, this very useful chart illustrates the point. The Obama administration said that without passing the stimulus bill, unemployment would go from 7.5 percent upwards over 8 percent. They said, with the stimulus bill being passed, that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent.

Now, as people are looking in from the gallery and around the country can see for themselves, the reality is a little bit different. Since the passage of the so-called stimulus bill back in January, not only has unemployment exceeded the high water mark the administration projected at 8 percent, but now it's almost 9.7 percent, and I say with a heavy heart, it might be rising as soon as this Friday.

You know, look, we need a strategy for energy independence in this country, a strategy that begins to take us in the direction of new resources and exploiting our current reserves. Our American Energy Act does that.

We need health care reform in this country that will lower the cost of health insurance for working families and small businesses and lowers the cost of health care in the long term without a government takeover. Chicago might even need the Olympics in 2016.

But more than anything else, we ought to be willing to set all those enterprises aside and work on this. We ought to be willing to do what has always worked to get this economy moving again, and that is fiscal restraint in Washington, D.C., and tax relief for working families, small businesses, and family farms. You combine that with a pro-growth trade policy, you combine that with policies that will result in a stable dollar, you combine that with rational regulatory reform, and you have a prescription for economic renewal and growth. In a word, to borrow the Speaker's phrase, you have a prescription for jobs, jobs, jobs.

And I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, apart from providing for the common defense and apart from, I believe, standing up for the values that make this country great, we have no higher calling in this institution than to pursue policies that will create conditions to create growth in this country.

And so I challenge my colleagues as we find ourselves talking about government takeovers of health care with their higher taxes, as now the Senate begins in earnest to work on passing a cap-and-trade bill in the name of climate change that will result in a massive national energy tax, why don't we all just do what they're doing back in Alex, Indiana? Let's take a breath. Let's have those debates in the cool of the day, after first and foremost we come together in a bipartisan way, we do what President Kennedy did, we do what President Reagan did, we do what President George W. Bush did after the tower fell, and we pass fast-acting tax relief for working families, small businesses, and family farms this year, and we begin to practice fiscal restraint on Washington, D.C. That combination of traditional American principle applied to this economy will create nothing short of jobs, jobs, jobs, and that's still job one on Capitol Hill.

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