John W. Olver: “I support quickly moving forward with a recovery package to put America back to work. The reckless actions of much of…”

“I support quickly moving forward with a recovery package to put America back to work. The reckless actions of much of Wall Street, coupled with years of inadequate regulatory oversight, have led to a housing and financial crisis of enormous proportions. Spiraling foreclosure rates have put millions of families on the brink of disaster and infected the entire economy. We must stop an economic collapse and throw a life-line to the millions of people that are struggling to find work and support their families. In the last four months alone, the economy has lost over 2 million jobs. By the end of 2009, an additional 3-5 million Americans could lose their jobs and without this package, the unemployment rate is likely to rise to 12 percent. Any final bill must create new jobs by: repairing and improving our nation's roads, highways and bridges and improve and expand public transportation in urban and rural areas. Surface transportation funding in the House bill would create more than 1 million new jobs. The House and Senate bills would also create jobs by investing in safety and capacity improvements at our Nation's airports; capital investments in Amtrak and intercity passenger rail; and energy retrofits in our Nation's public housing, HUD assisted housing and Indian reservation housing. This is just some of the important job creating stimulus in this bill. It is important that we act quickly to bolster the sagging economy.”