On the recordOctober 6, 2011
as we discuss what we should be talking about--how to get more people back to work--there are a lot of different approaches on how we get there. But I hope we can reach the decision that we need to do the things in government that allow private individuals to make the decisions they make to create jobs. Our Federal debt has reached, of course, a record high. It continues to grow every day. National unemployment is lingering around 9 percent. Home prices have plummeted in almost every community in America. Gas prices and health care costs have skyrocketed. On the energy issue my friend from Vermont was talking about, the shortest path to more American jobs is more American energy. I am not opposed to any of the green jobs he was talking about. I wish to see us have all of those jobs, if they can eventually be a competitive part of an energy environment. I think they can. But I think we should also focus on the jobs that power America today. Even if we knew what the country was going to look like energywise 30 years from now, it would take a long time to get there. I am for more American energy jobs of all kinds. For 50 years we have not met the marketplace need with what we could produce. But the marketplace need is always there. It is always there in a bad economy, it is always there in a good economy. Let's meet that need. Certainly that can mean more solar and more wind and more biofuels and more anything else we can think of.…
