John Yarmuth

The American people, I think, would be repulsed by the idea that we would default on our debt.

You have called it catastrophic, we call it reckless, all in all, not a good idea.

Now, we have just heard from a colleague from the other side of the aisle, and we have heard from many Republicans over the last few days, concerning the issue of spending and whether or not we need to be spending any more money in this…

In the wake of the tragedy in Tucson 10 days ago, there has been a lot of soul searching, a lot of introspection, and a lot of commentary about what was behind the tragedy there and what motivated Jared Loughner to take the action he did…

Over the course of the last year and a half as we worked to pass incredibly important protections to Americans, opponents of health care reform continued to try to scare people about what we were doing. And now with this vote today, where…

Tomorrow we will vote on H.R. 2, the Republican health care bill. This bill is another example of actions speaking louder than words. Now, many of my Republican colleagues have said they support certain health care reforms: a ban on…

Congresswoman Gabby Giffords is one of the kindest, most thoughtful and hardest working elected officials anywhere. It is a shame that it took a despicable act to shine this bright spotlight on Gabby. She is what virtually every American…

I go back to these rules that have been adopted now in the House, and they basically give extraordinary unprecedented power to one person to set these budget limits to decide the budgetary impact of an investment in infrastructure or a…

I thank the gentleman. And reclaiming my time, the analogy I used earlier was with families, and we all know we're in a difficult budgetary situation. We know we're running huge deficits right now, and we know that the money that we are…

I thank the distinguished Congresswoman from Maryland for her comments, and I'm actually kind of glad that Congressman King brought up these major benefits which are now helping families across this country. Ms. Edwards talked about the…

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and congratulations on your election. It's a great pleasure to be here today. I could spend the next half hour responding to my colleague from Iowa. I think it's fascinating just that one comment, that he talks…

I mean, people legitimately borrow money, and businesses legitimately borrow money for two reasons. One is for survival, to eat, to pay salaries if you are a small business. And they borrow money for investments. We have plenty of…

Last May, President Richard Levin of Yale University delivered a commencement speech, and I think the message he conveyed in that speech is worth repeating here for the Members of this body and also for the American people. I am going to…

Mr. Chairman, when families around the country try to deal with their budgetary issues and there are limited resources available, what they do is, they say, Well, we may have to borrow money; but if we're borrowing money, we're going to…

When most people borrow money--and go into debt--it's either for survival or for an investment that will pay off in the future. Borrowing $114 billion from China to give massive tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans meets neither of those…

This week, the Senate and the House will be asked to vote on a package of tax extenders and other provisions that will provide great benefits for many hardworking American families and for low-income people. Unfortunately, this comes at a…

There was a time, and it wasn't too long ago, that the gorgeous waterfront park in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, was a junkyard. It was a time, just 25 years ago, that if you found yourself in our now thriving downtown after dark…

I would ask my colleagues from the other side of the aisle why did they write them into the law? Because these are Republican tax hikes that we are dealing with, trying to decide what makes sense from a fiscal standpoint and from a…

We are now in a situation in this country in which we have the greatest disparity between the very wealthiest people and everybody else that we have had in 100 years. Already this year, the top 1 percent of the income earners in this…

Soon we are going to have to decide how to treat the Bush tax cuts. We are going to have to decide whether or not to indebt the American people another $700 billion to extend benefits, tax benefits, for the richest 1 percent of the…

If the story is true, Senator McConnell will have to explain to the families of all the men and women who sacrificed in Iraq why he was willing to play politics with their lives.

Our Republican colleagues are constantly reminding us that the administration last year said that unemployment would not get to 8 percent if we passed our Recovery Act. Well, that remains to be seen. But let's talk about a projection that…

We heard just a few minutes ago a repetition of the myth that our friends from the Republican Party tried to foist on the American people, the idea that somehow, by restoring the pre-Bush tax rates on the wealthiest Americans, we are going…

Sunday on ``Meet the Press,'' the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Mr. Sessions of Texas, said that if the Republicans took over the House next Congress, that we could count on the exact same agenda that we had…

Senate Republicans continue to refuse to allow the extension of unemployment insurance benefits to the American people. Let me tell you what that does in my State. If we don't extend those benefits within a very short period of time…