On the recordDecember 8, 2011
The unemployment rate in this country is close to 9 percent, and we're not doing anything about that problem. The deficit is a real threat to our economy, and the Republicans nearly made us default on our debts because they wouldn't go along with a real deficit reduction bill. We are looking at sequestrations of our national budget for the military, and our Secretary of Defense says that could be a threat to the Nation. And that sequestration will take place because the Republicans wouldn't allow the so-called supercommittee to do its job. I want to read from an editorial in the Sioux Falls ArgusLeader: ``There are important issues at the Federal level right now that will have direct impact on our State--the dwindling funding for the Lewis and Clark water project and the fight to maintain our State's Medicare reimbursements through the Frontier States Provision . . . These are real issues . . . So it's disappointing to see [this] fight against a made-up problem like the potential for farm dust regulations by the Environmental Protection Agency. When the EPA announced it would not pursue anything along these lines and they had no intention to do it, the Senate sponsor of this same bill declared victory and he pulled back on his companion bill for the other body.…





