On the recordMay 7, 2013
I thank you so very, very much for really bringing to all of our attention the extraordinary impact that the sequestration is having on American families. Jobs are being lost. Real jobs are disappearing, and Americans, working men and women, are feeling their paychecks being significantly reduced. Now, another word for sequestration is austerity budgets. Shortly after the Great Recession began in 2008, there was the debate about should the governments of the world, the United States, Europe, China and Japan, should they take a policy of actively engaging in the economy to boost demand, which would be a Keynesian model of increasing the purchasing power within the economy, or should there be a reduction in government spending because of the deficits that were created as people lost their jobs and as tax revenues declined? That debate was robustly engaged here on the floor of the House, with the decision being made to engage the government in increasing the demand. So the stimulus bill came forth, and it really worked. It really had an effect. Hundreds of thousands of jobs were created. The decline was stopped, and slowly in 2009 and 2010, the American economy began to recover. Now, Europe made a different decision. In Europe, they made a decision not to stimulate the economy but rather to go into austerity, to reduce the budgets of the governments. The result in Europe has been perfectly clear. They have headed into a deep, deep recession yet again. They never came out of it.…
