On the recordJune 17, 2010
I appreciate the comments of the whip, but I think what we've got to do is to just talk about reality here. The reality is, when George Bush left office in January of 2009, this country was losing 780,000 jobs per month. Last month, we gained 400,000 jobs. That's a swing of over 1.1 million jobs per month. Yet, on top of that, not only did the Bush administration leave this country in a terrible lurch with jobs; it left this country with a terrible lurch and with a terrible deficit of $1.3 trillion. The Republicans would have America have mass amnesia, to forget where we were. In 2007, we spent $141 billion in Iraq. Today, they're telling us, Hey, let's sell off part of the country to pay our debts. We were spending $141 billion in Iraq and not paying for it. This year, we're going to draw that down to $65 billion. Republicans would have us forget. Let's talk real money. I agree: we should never be wasting money in this country. Every dollar should be worthwhile and real, but we're going to spend $77 billion less in Iraq than under George Bush and at the end of the Republican rule of Congress. So here we've improved employment by some 1.1 million jobs per month. We were left with a terrible deficit by President Bush of $1.3 trillion. We are drawing down Iraq and are saving real money. Then they come up with an advertising program of YouCut to sell assets of this country. I reserve the balance of my time.
