Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this House is badly broken. This Republican leadership is out of touch. This process is a disgrace. This is not the way the people's business is supposed to work. We are now debating a continuing resolution that has the same objectionable provisions that were rejected yesterday on a bipartisan basis. Plus it has additional provisions that cut jobs. It's even worse.

So here's the deal: what's objectionable to people like me is my Republican friends continue to insist on cutting programs that will result in the elimination of American jobs. Their view is simple. If you want to help victims of tornadoes and hurricanes, then we have to pay for it, and we pay for it, in their view, by cutting jobs--not tax cuts for millionaires; not subsidies for Big Oil; not cutting incentives that encourage sending American jobs overseas. What they're advocating is cutting American jobs.

Mr. Speaker, the Republican leadership, in my opinion, doesn't have a clue. They are obsessed with cutting government at all costs, including programs that help sustain American jobs, including programs that help prevent the elimination of American jobs. And here's the deal. The issue is jobs. They may not want to hear it, but the central issue before our country is jobs. I don't care where you go in this country, what people want to talk about is jobs and the creation of jobs as a way to secure our economy. What we should be talking about on the House floor tonight is jobs. What we should be talking about on the House floor tomorrow is jobs. What we should be talking about every day until the American people are back to work is jobs.

Instead, under this Republican leadership, we're debating trivial issues passionately and important ones not at all. I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to, at a minimum, allow Democrats to bring up the President's jobs bill so we can put people back to work.

The best way to reduce the debt in this country is to put people back to work. Even a slight drop in the unemployment rate in this country would result in an incredible reduction in our debt.

So I urge my colleagues to reject this continuing resolution because it is about eliminating jobs. It's not about creating more jobs; it's about eliminating jobs. Reject this continuing resolution because it plays politics with the lives of American citizens who have been victimized by natural disasters.

I urge the Republican leadership to, at least in this one instance, try to be bipartisan. We talk about an open House. We talk about bipartisanship. Here's an opportunity for us to be bipartisan. Let's work together on behalf of the American people. Let's get this bill right, and let's focus on jobs. That's what the American people want. This bill falls far short of that.

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