Bart Stupak: “Michigan has one of the highest unemployment figures in the country, and that figure continues to rise. Michigan's…”

“Michigan has one of the highest unemployment figures in the country, and that figure continues to rise. Michigan's unemployment rate is 7.6 percent, the Upper Peninsula's jobless rate is 8.6 percent, and Northeast Lower Michigan's jobless rate is 12.4 percent. But the Republican budget does nothing to create jobs here at home or end incentives for companies to ship jobs overseas. It cuts small business investment and fails to extend unemployment insurance for millions of jobless Americans, including 335,868 unemployed residents of Michigan. And it includes new tax cuts--while our nation's checkbook sinks deeper in the red--with a $531 billion deficit. I offered proposals that were rejected along partisan lines by the Rules Committee that would have put fiscal sanity into our budgeting process. My amendment said, no new tax cuts unless we have a surplus that can pay for it and no tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Yes, we have to make hard choices given the record deficits we have today. However, I cannot choose tax cuts over the priorities of the working families and seniors of Michigan. At town hall meetings and in letters, my constituents tell me: protect our jobs and manufacturers, protect our Social Security and Medicare, fund education, provide affordable health care and make our communities safer. This budget shortchanges all of those priorities.”