On the recordAugust 1, 2011
I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, we should never have reached this point in our country. We should never have reached the point when our troops wondered whether they were going to get paid or individuals on Social Security wondered whether they were going to see their earned benefits. That should never have happened. This is the first time in history, the first time in history, that we've seen Members of this Congress threaten to close down the American economy unless they got their particular budget plan through, one that ends the Medicare guarantee, slashes Medicaid and would deeply cut our investments in education and innovation. We protected those investments in this bill. The plan did not work. It didn't work now, and the plan to do it again 6 months from now didn't work. {time} 1810 So now we will have that great debate over our priorities. We are looking forward to it. Let's get on to talking about jobs and the economy. With that, I yield 1 minute to the very distinguished Democratic leader, who has been a fighter for America's priorities, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).
