Jim Nussle: “Mr. Speaker, what is probably most humorous about the last statement on the floor is that the Democrats do not want to…”

“Mr. Speaker, what is probably most humorous about the last statement on the floor is that the Democrats do not want to take credit when it is going up or when it is coming down. In fact, this year the Democrats presented no plan, no budget, no ideas, no answers, no solutions, nothing. Not on energy, not on Medicare, not on agriculture, not on Social Security, not on anything that is addressing the needs of this Nation. Not on homeland security, not on defense, not on intelligence. None of those things were presented in a budget this year. Let us just review the bidding of how we got here. Last year, not this year, last year the Republicans, together with the President, introduced a budget that said energy needs to be a priority. When you are 60 percent dependent on foreign fossil fuels for the energy of your nation, you have got a problem. People come to my town meetings and they wonder sometimes a little bit about why we are entangled in the Middle East. Wake up, America. There is your reason. We have not had a long-term energy strategy. We have allowed it to deplete over time. The last 8 years have certainly been no friend to energy. And so, yes, of course, we find ourselves with that as a necessary priority. It has impacted our economy, it has impacted the creation of jobs.”