On the recordAugust 10, 2010
I thank my friend for yielding. The hour is late and Members have come back, properly so, to address an issue that we addressed months ago. The Senate sent it to us; we were gone. We thought it our responsibility to ask Members to come back because if we hadn't come back, if we didn't pass this bill, what could happen? 160,000 teachers would be at risk of being laid off and probably would be laid off. What would that mean? It would mean larger class sizes for teachers to deal with, children not receiving the kind of education that they need to be competitive in the global marketplace. What might have also happened? Some 160,000 police and fire personnel, emergency response teams, may have had to be laid off. That's why we came back. That's why we believe this is so important. And how we paid for this, because we do not add a nickel to the national debt, notwithstanding the previous speaker, we paid for this because we believe if we're going to invest in our future, we also are going to pay for it, not ask our grandchildren to pay for it. Now, that's a concept that was jettisoned under Republican leadership but we've reestablished. So we pay for this. One of the ways we pay for it is to ask people is, look, if you're going to send jobs overseas we're not going to give you a tax break.
