On the recordMarch 3, 2011
I think the gentleman probably agrees with that proposition. I know the chairman of the Budget Committee agrees with that proposition. I may not agree with the chairman of the Budget Committee on how he wants to get there, but I think we do agree that we have to look at all of the spending that we do, and that bringing down the deficit is of critical consequence. Let me say to the gentleman, however, when he speaks about jobs, as he knows, we lost 3.8 million jobs in 2008, the last year of the Bush administration. The last year of the Obama administration, the last 12 months, we have gained 1.1 million private sector jobs. So when the gentleman says that the Recovery Act did not have the effect that the administration hoped for, he is correct. We went up above the 8 percent unemployment. But the gentleman, I'm sure, knows that during the last 12 months we have gained jobs on an average of 569,000 over the last 5 months, so half a million jobs. Is that enough? It's not. Frankly, we are going to have to be at 300,000 or 400,000 per month to overcome the number of jobs that were lost prior to or during the recession which started, of course, in 2007.
