Adam Schiff: “just 3 years ago the state of our economy was strong. We had just seen 20 million new jobs created. We had seen the…”

“just 3 years ago the state of our economy was strong. We had just seen 20 million new jobs created. We had seen the fastest growth in 30 years, the lowest unemployment in 30 years, the lowest poverty rates in 20 years, and the first back-to-back surpluses in 42 years, up to a surplus of $236 billion. Alan Greenspan and others wondered aloud about the danger of an America that was debt free. What we would do, what we would give to have an America that is debt free now. But instead, our economy is in a different place. Instead, we have lost 2.2 million jobs in the last 3 years; and despite a rise in the stock market and productivity gains, there are no new jobs. People are searching for work longer and finding less. This result was not unforeseeable. For years, members of the Blue Dog Coalition warned we were spending money we did not have, that the administration had no economic plan, that tax cuts alone were not a substitute for an economic plan for our country's future. Last year, this Congress voted to pass an increase in the national debt. At the same time we took up the increase in the national debt, we took up a further round of tax cuts. I remember standing here on this House floor and pointing out the awful irony that in the same week we voted to raise the national debt we voted to cut taxes further. And it was plain we were borrowing the money to cut taxes further. A tax cut that is not paid for is not a tax cut at all.”