Paul Tonko: “Thank you, Representative Yarmuth. I believe we don't have much time left in this hour of discussion. But let me just…”

“Thank you, Representative Yarmuth. I believe we don't have much time left in this hour of discussion. But let me just indicate that this entire House experienced an election last November. Everyone was up for election. And I would dare say in talking to many, many colleagues about the message that resonated back at home it was about jobs, jobs, jobs. It was about the economy. That was the driving dynamic I believe at the voting booth. And look at our track record here for the first 3\1/2\ months for the 112th session of Congress. Not one bit of legislation that would produce jobs was brought to the floor. However, that budget, as you just pointed out in your Slash-onomics bar graph, might take as many as 975,000 jobs off the picture for American workers, after we've spent just over a year creating over 2 million private sector jobs. Now that's in contrast with 8.2 million lost under the Bush recession. So we've got a long way to go. But why would you reverse progress with a budget that, with Slash- onomics, reduces nearly--well, we'll even take some of the lower estimates of 400,000; why would you want to do that at a time when we are recovering from that very difficult economic time? I think it's so important for us to inform the constituents out there and tell middle class America this is a tipping point in our history. This is whether we fix an economy, create a situation where we come forth and produce products not yet on the commercial scene.…”