Mr. Speaker, as we meet this afternoon, there are 15 million Americans who are unemployed, and for them, this is another day of searching the Web or the want ads to try to find a job they've been unable to find after months of diligent searching. So what is the Congress of the United States doing about this? We are wasting yet another opportunity to work together, Republicans and Democrats, to create an environment in which small business people and entrepreneurs can create jobs for our country, the way we did work together at the end of last year and passed legislation that 80 Senators voted for, 270-some House Members voted for across party lines. The majority says that this process will somehow help to create jobs. It is important to understand what this resolution really says. It says, in response to the 15 million unemployed people we have in this country, let's have a bunch of politicians have a bunch of meetings they were already scheduled to have; right? So their response, Mr. Speaker, is let's spend 9rac{1}{2} hours debating a bill that says a bunch of politicians should have a bunch of meetings they would have had anyway to talk about the problem.
Editor's note · Context
The speaker addresses the high unemployment rate and Congress's inaction on job creation.
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