Ed Royce: “I did want to take a few minutes in order to explain to the Members of this body and to the people of the Nation that…”

“I did want to take a few minutes in order to explain to the Members of this body and to the people of the Nation that the attacks on September 11 were also an attack on our economy. It hit our economy hard. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, they do a report, and they found that the U.S. economy constricted in the third quarter after that attack by .4 percent. That is the biggest constriction of economic output in more than a decade. In addition to that, household consumption grew hardly at all and business investment plummeted as a consequence, and most of the data before the September 11 attacks and the fourth quarter could prove to be quite a challenge for the United States unless preventive and decisive action is taken now by this body of Congress. Congress needs to pass legislation to stimulate the U.S. economy, and it needs to address the issue of providing needed help for those displaced workers who have frankly lost their jobs as a result of this economic contraction. How many Americans have lost their jobs? The latest estimate was 800,000.”