Hank Johnson: “I listened intently to my colleague's opening remarks, and he seemed to try to justify the passage of the REINS Act…”

“I listened intently to my colleague's opening remarks, and he seemed to try to justify the passage of the REINS Act, which I rise in opposition to, by the way, by saying that it has been the Obama administration's job-killing regulations that have put our economy in its position, which is one that is not good. Despite trying to convince the American people of that allegation, the American people are aware of the facts. They are aware of the fact that, 8 years ago, when President Obama came into office and under a Republican stewardship that used trickle-down economics as its model, this economy neared that of the Great Depression's. In fact, we call it the period of the Great Recession. This country almost went into a depression, and it went into a Great Recession because of George Bush's and the Republicans' policies of trickle-down economics, which Daddy Bush--George Herbert Walker Bush--once referred to as ``voodoo economics,'' and he was right about that. Let's look at where we were then and look at where we are now and ask ourselves: Are we not better off now than we were then? There are not many voices that could say, No, we are not better off now than we were then, because they know, since then, there have been 81 straight months of positive private sector job growth. They know that over 15.6 million new jobs have been added to our economy by President Obama.…”