On the recordOctober 26, 2011
I thank my friend from Florida for yielding. As we meet this afternoon, 15 million Americans are unemployed. The President has a proposal to put people to work modernizing 35,000 schools in America, but we're not voting on that bill. The President has a proposal that would avoid a $1,500 a year tax increase on middle class Americans January 1 if we don't act, but we're not voting on that bill. The President has ideas to help the real job creators, the small businesses of this country, get bank loans from the people they bailed out with their tax dollars in the TARP bill a couple of years ago, but we're not voting on that bill. Now, we are voting on a bill that we should support that says that businesses should not have to make an interest-free loan to the government when they do business with the government. I'm for that. But you do need to understand the way this bill is paid for. This bill does have an offset, meaning it will not add to the deficit. I think we're all for that. But it's important to understand the way we make that decision. There were two options as to how we might take care of that offset. We said let's go to the industry that's had the most successful year in its history, the oil industry, and stop giving our tax dollars to the oil industry when they're making record profits. That idea is not up for a vote. What is up for a vote is a provision that may make some sense. It may make some sense.…
