GOP Freshmen Hour

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOLD. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I still am just thinking about the regulations from this week, and the week is not over. We've still got another day of regulations that are going to be coming out.

And we hear time and again from our colleagues on the other side of the aisle that it's been 10 months and still no jobs bill. We hear it time and again with the 1-minute speeches when we open up session; the other side says ``still no jobs bill.''

Well, I beg to differ. We've got jobs bills. We talk about the forgotten 15. We've got several more. We passed some tonight.

Part of our plan is to empower the private sector. Part of our plan is to make sure that we're eliminating some of the uncertainty that's out there. And let me just tell you, the week of regulations, just 1 week of regulations that are out here that literally shakes the desk when you drop it is certainly not creating more certainty.

Now, the one thing that I am pleased to say is that I believe that we were sent here to be able to work with those on the other side of the aisle to move our country forward. I am pleased to say that we passed bills today talking about access to capital for job creators, like many of us here coming from the private sector--broad bipartisan support.

The President of the United States came and spoke before the Chamber here in a joint session talking about a jobs plan. As opposed to saying no, I don't want it, what I tried to talk to others about, and I know many agree, is what are the areas that we agree on?

Let's talk about free trade or the trade agreements. We agree. We passed those. That's about 250,000 American jobs, increasing our bottom line in terms of our GDP by $10 billion this year alone with South Korea as the only one. We add Colombia and Panama and that number obviously rises.

The President talks about the burdensome regulations. We agree. We need to make sure we have regulations. As the gentlelady from Washington noted, we want them to be smart regulations, not just more of them. I mean, my goodness. How much does it cost us to even print these?

The long and the short of it is that we need to create an environment, we need to create an environment for the private sector out there with broad bipartisan support. And I believe that if we ask those on the other side of the aisle what's the biggest issue facing our country today, it's jobs and the economy. We just have a different view of who should be creating those jobs.

I believe it should be the private sector. I believe the private sector, entrepreneurship. The United States of America has been and continues to be the greatest force for hope the world has ever known. We have 29 million small businesses in our Nation. If we can create an environment where half of them can create a single job, think about where we'd be then.

Let's just take a look at this because these are some bold points, and I think if I asked the gentleman from Illinois to talk to me about empowering small businesses and reducing government barriers to job creation, I guarantee you he can give me a couple of things that we're doing right now here in this Congress.

If I talked to the gentleman from Colorado about fixing the Tax Code to help job creators, I know that he'd come up with some things because we've already done it. We passed a budget.

We're at 918 days in the United States Senate. 918 days, and still no budget. Yet, the law requires the Congress to come up with a budget every April 15. And yet that responsibility--by the way, it's against the law--has been shirked by the United States Senate.

We're going to hear more about this ``Do-Nothing Congress.'' And I want to make sure that the American public knows that we are here passing what we believe is commonsense legislation, in a bipartisan fashion, to move the country forward.

We realize that unless things pass the United States Senate and go to the President's desk for signature, we're not going to be able to move the needle.

The American public is frustrated. We're frustrated too, because I believe that the American Dream is at stake. The American Compact that we all came to Congress to deal with, that we leave the country better for the next generation than we received from our parents and grandparents, I believe, is in jeopardy today. That, to me, is completely unacceptable.

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Mr. DOLD. I thank the gentlewoman for commenting on that. There's no doubt. Look, bipartisanship can be done. The American public is frustrated because they don't think that we're working, and, in some instances, we know that Washington can be broken.

We want to work together because we know we've got to move the ball down the field. We know we've got to get people back to work. We've got a 9.1 percent unemployment. What is it in Wisconsin?

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Mr. DOLD. About 9 percent? In Illinois it's at 10 percent. In certain areas of the 10th District in Illinois we've got areas of 20 to 22 percent. I can tell you that jobs right now, absolutely number one priority, and that's why I'm willing to work with anybody here in Washington that's willing to listen, that's willing to reach across the aisle to come up with solutions. And I want to let you know, people are saying that we don't have a plan--we've got a plan: Jobs.gop.gov. I welcome everybody to go get it.

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