Bill Pascrell: “Mr. Speaker, if you look at the data, it is clear that since the start of the Obama administration and the passage of…”

“Mr. Speaker, if you look at the data, it is clear that since the start of the Obama administration and the passage of the Recovery Act--we are stemming the number of job losses per month; there is no doubt about that. But we need to do everything we can to actually start gaining jobs instead of just losing fewer. It would seem like the charts, it would seem by the facts that in the next several months we will see, finally, for the first time in several years a plus in terms of the creation of jobs. The U.S. jobs deficit has reached millions. Our unemployment rate is 9.7 percent. That is an intolerable rate. The problem we are facing is how to address the shortfall in employment opportunities and articulate a new strategy that targets and engages our small businesses and American workers. Mr. Speaker, we simply need jobs. Which brings me to what I think is the most obvious answer. It was obvious many years ago, it's obvious now: Our infrastructure. Our infrastructure is in disrepair. And it's not just our roads, and it's not just our bridges that are falling down.”