Roy Blunt: “I rise again today because southwest Missourians keep telling me that they're expecting us to keep our eye on the ball.…”

“I rise again today because southwest Missourians keep telling me that they're expecting us to keep our eye on the ball. The most important thing they want us working on in the House is jobs--that's J-O-B-S, Madam Speaker. But most of the bills we've considered here on the House floor have exactly the opposite effect. Southwest Missourians know the difference between good policies that put people back to work and the tax-raising, job-killing agenda of the majority in Washington. Madam Speaker, there is and has been a bipartisan resistance to this extreme agenda, but the majority does whatever is necessary to pass these bills. With government control of health care and the House-passed national energy tax of cap-and-trade, costs go up and jobs go down. Despite promises that the $862 billion so-called stimulus bill would keep unemployment below 8 percent, here we are today, Madam Speaker, with an unemployment rate of over 9 percent per month. Our top priority must be job creation. The government can't create private sector jobs, but it sure can pursue smart policies that help create those jobs.”