David Thomas: “I will take the remainder of our time to talk a little bit about jobs, an issue that has been highest on our agenda on…”

“I will take the remainder of our time to talk a little bit about jobs, an issue that has been highest on our agenda on this side of the aisle for a good long time, and continues to be. First, I have to react a little bit to some of the comments that were made earlier about moving forward. I am very frustrated that each bill brought to this floor is slowed down either by objection or by a week's discussion and debate of amendments. Of course, everyone is entitled to offer amendments. But when you have to stay with a bill that is fairly simple and be there for a week and a half and then complain about not getting our jobs done, that is sort of ironic. Obviously, we have at least four things that need to be done in the next several weeks. We have to continue the supplemental bill to pay for our Armed Forces in Iraq as well as to get Iraq in a position to allow us to leave and take care of themselves. We do have appropriations left. We have six that are not done yet. So we do have to worry about that and move forward. We have the opportunity to do something with health care, particularly pharmaceuticals and Medicare, and we are in a position to do that. We also have an opportunity to do more with energy than we have done for a very long time.”