On the recordJuly 27, 2011
I agree with the two previous speakers, my colleagues from California. Here we are dealing with a flawed bill that would deny our stewardship of our environment all while we're faced with an economic consequence, with a default that stares us in the face. For the past 200 days, the Republican leadership of this body has set aside America's priority of job creation in order to talk about the debt and to talk about the deficit. My concern is that as we face that looming threat of default, my Republican colleagues aren't doing much but talk. After 200 days with no jobs agenda, after 200 days of voting to destroy millions of jobs, after 200 days of saying that those hardest hit by the recession should bear the burden of unbalanced cuts, after 200 days of rhetoric and walking away, my Republican colleagues have forced this Congress and the American people to wait yet more hours to see and vote on their plan. As we all know, last night the Congressional Budget Office pointed out that some of the cuts in the Speaker's plan weren't real. Meanwhile, the Tea Party base said that Cut, Cap, and Balance is the only plan they will support. We considered that plan last week, and it has failed in the Senate. It is a plan that Bruce Bartlett--who was a Reagan adviser and a Bush Treasury official--said was ``mind-boggling in its insanity.'' Others have called it the ``most ideologically extreme'' budget legislation to come before Congress in decades. Governing is not always easy.…
