On the recordFebruary 15, 2011
The underlying bill is a special insult to the Americans who voted for the new majority on the promise of jobs. They might forgive that the majority does not know how to produce jobs or that they haven't produced jobs yet, but they will never understand a bill that will make history on the number of jobs it affirmatively destroys. The deficit commission warned about cuts that are at the centerpiece of the majority's bill, cuts that don't distinguish between short-term and long-term deficits, between the job-producing role of government investment during an economic turndown and the needed savings to reduce the long-term deficit, which must go on simultaneously; but the majority loses its focus entirely with its obsession on snatching local authority, over local funds from the District of Columbia. While the majority wants to make draconian cuts in most Federal programs, putting at high risk the economy itself, it simultaneously expands Federal power into the local funds and affairs of a local jurisdiction, the District of Columbia. Three riders in this bill are anti-self-government, having nothing to do with the underlying bill or the Federal Government. Particularly cruel, apart from the home-rule violation, is the attempt to reimpose a provision that would keep the District of Columbia from spending its own local funds on needle exchange programs.
