Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to H.R. 4213, Tax Extenders Act of 2009

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. FOXX. I thank my colleague from Texas for yielding time and for handling this rule on the floor today.

Mr. Speaker, there are so many things to refute from our friends on the other side that there is simply not enough time to do it.

But what we need to say over and over and over again, that instead of addressing the staggering deficits and debt that the Democrats, who were totally in control of the Congress--and that needs to be repeated over and over and over again--what they are running up in Washington, $714 billion in deficit spending in the first half of fiscal year 2010 alone.

Speaker Pelosi and Leader Hoyer are trying to shield their Members from taking any more ``tough votes'' during an election year. Or, as one Washington newspaper put it, without much else on the House agenda, they simply don't have any excuses not to do a budget beyond cowardice.

Economists say that Washington needs to cut spending now to create jobs, but Democrats aren't listening. Out of touch Washington Democrats may think that by skipping the budget process this year, they can avoid the tough choices that come from governing. But they can't hide from our Nation's problems, especially when their job-killing agenda is making things worse. They could come to the floor and will say they are creating jobs, but the numbers prove otherwise.

The simple truth is while the liberals have repeatedly claimed their trillion-dollar 2009 stimulus plan was ``the right thing to do,'' it's hard to tell that from looking at the job situation across the U.S. According to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Labor, by April 2010 a total of 48 out of 50 States had seen net job losses since the President signed the Democrat stimulus plan into law in February 2009.

The data show that only Alaska, North Dakota, and the District of Colombia have seen net job creation since then. Other than perhaps the predictable exception in D.C., even those States that have seen some increases in jobs are still well short of the growth the White House originally forecast.

What is clear is that 2.7 million more jobs have been eliminated--eliminated, Mr. Speaker--since the Democrat stimulus was passed. Unemployment rose to 9.9 percent instead of falling to 7.4 percent, as Democrats predicted, and 15 million Americans--an all-time record for the month of April--are currently unemployed.

It's baffling that grown people charged with leading Congress cannot learn from their failed attempts at addressing the problems facing everyday Americans. And as my colleague from Texas has said, they like to bash corporations, but what they're bashing are employers.

They love to brag about how effective they've been in providing jobs, but I want to tell you, government jobs don't provide the viable solution to help get the economy back on its feet. According to a May 25, 2010 article in USA Today, ``Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year. At the same time, government-provided benefits--Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other programs--rose to a record high during the first 3 months of 2010.

``Those records reflect a long-term trend accelerated by the recession and the Federal stimulus program to counteract the downturn. The result is a major shift in the source of personal income from private wages to government programs.''

The American people know we don't need more government programs and more government spending. We need to spur on the private economy; and this rule, this bill will not do that.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the rule and ``no'' on the underlying bill.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Ms. FOXX. I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding again.

I had to come back after I heard our colleague just speaking because I think that it is time that we create a new dictionary that explains the language being used in Washington.

As my colleague from Texas pointed out earlier, our colleagues across the aisle, Mr. Speaker, constantly bash corporations, but we prefer to call them ``employers.'' Our colleagues across the aisle talk about revenue all the time, but revenue in Washington means taxes on American workers.

Yet the word, the phrase, that really got my attention this morning was the comment that my colleague said: We pay for these.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Congress has no money other than what it confiscates from the American taxpayers. I am really getting tired of our colleagues across the aisle pretending that we in Congress somehow or another use largess that comes like manna from Heaven to do things for the American people. They're doing their best to get the American people to think of dependency on the Federal Government. That is the wrong way to go. They aren't paying for anything. You, the American people, are paying for every one of their ridiculous, wasteful products. It is time we stop it.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source