On the recordFebruary 15, 2011
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we've had promise after promise after promise after promise that the Republicans were going to pay attention to what the people wanted. And what the people want is jobs, jobs, jobs. I rise in opposition to this amendment, Madam Chair. I want to point out that these Republican cuts that have been proposed are draconian, they are extremist, they are bad for America. They are bad for our economic recovery. Everybody knows that we just came out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. We call it the Great Recession. We're just coming out of it, even though most Americans don't feel it yet. Certainly those folk up on Wall Street who got the bailouts, they feel the recovery, and they are back to the huge bonuses and salaries. They are looking at this Republican Congress to release them from all of the regulatory measures that the Democrats put in place over the last 2 years so that they can continue to party. And while they party, their friends here in Congress on the Republican side of the aisle are busy trying to balance the budget on the backs of working men and women in this country. That's what the CR proposal is all about. It came out on Friday at 8 p.m.; they issued their plan, and here we are on Tuesday arguing the merits--or demerits, actually--of this plan that is nothing other than a plan that undermines America's future. This plan is going to cause severe job cuts which will hurt our economic recovery.
