Rob Andrews: “I know that the unemployed people of our country need help and our economy needs help, and I think there is broad…”

“I know that the unemployed people of our country need help and our economy needs help, and I think there is broad agreement on that tonight. Where there is disagreement is over the two-thirds of the money in this bill that is not spent this year, Mr. Speaker; $162 billion that does not even get spent this year. It has nothing to do with stimulating the economy. If we have learned any lesson in the last 30 years, it is that when we run the Federal Government by borrowing money, we destroy jobs and ruin the economy. This bill is as if the last 10 years never happened around here, because here we go again. This bill is going to take a quarter of $1 trillion and borrow it from the Social Security trust fund. Two-thirds of that money has nothing to do with what is going to happen in the next 12 months. It is simply going to run up the deficit, destroy jobs, and re-create the malignancy that burdened this economy and the people of this country for so long. We could make an agreement in the short run, but this bill does not do it. It should be opposed.”