Patrick J. Tiberi: “Well, I thank the gentleman from northeastern Ohio and the Cleveland suburbs in Lake County for organizing this hour…”

“Well, I thank the gentleman from northeastern Ohio and the Cleveland suburbs in Lake County for organizing this hour today, and I think you've really hit on some of the important points. When you kind of go back over a year ago when the stimulus bill was passed by the majority, the Speaker said that unemployment wouldn't go above 8 percent. Boy, it would be nice to see unemployment at 8 percent in Ohio at this time, wouldn't it? It would be nice to see unemployment at 8 percent in my district. It would be nice to see 8 percent unemployment in your district. It would be nice to see unemployment even close to 8 percent nationally, and we don't see that today. In fact, as someone who has a father factoring the last time unemployment was above 8 percent, which was in the early 1980s--he lost his job and lost his pension, and we lost our health care--it's kind of deja vu all over again. Rather than try to focus on those issues, we have spent a whole lot of time on issues that don't employ people, that don't make a difference in people's lives. Maybe they are important, but not as important as dealing with the nuts-and-bolts issues that you've talked about tonight. I mean, if you can't budget, you can't govern, one man said, who is now the chairman of the Budget Committee from South Carolina. If you can't budget, you can't govern. Maybe you've already said this, but, since 1974, the House has never passed a budget.”