John Tierney: “I rise to address H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act of 2004. We are talking about this bill today…”

“I rise to address H.R. 2432, the Paperwork and Regulatory Improvements Act of 2004. We are talking about this bill today because House Republicans are concerned that they are being criticized for the millions of jobs that have been lost under this administration. House Republicans have decided that instead of taking action to create jobs, they would make a plan to talk about taking action to create jobs. Each week they have a different theme. This week they are talking about cutting red tape. The bill we are considering, however, does nothing to cut red tape. As we will hear later from the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), this bill does nothing to reduce the hours that Americans spend filling out paperwork. In fact, the hours Americans must spend filling out paperwork has increased dramatically under the Bush administration. This bill will also do nothing to improve the regulations issued by the Bush administration. In fact, some provisions of the bill will actually make the regulatory process worse.”