Don Nickles: “I compliment my colleague and friend from Nevada for his statement. It is important that we create an environment to…”

“I compliment my colleague and friend from Nevada for his statement. It is important that we create an environment to create jobs. We did that last year. We didn't have bipartisan support, with the exception of Senator Miller. But we passed a jobs bill last year. We passed a bill to help grow the economy. Guess what. It is working. We passed a bill last year that cut the tax on individuals about in half--15 percent. We passed a bill last year that cut the tax on capital gains from 20 to 15 percent. We passed a bill that reduced marginal rates; that took the rate from 27 percent, for example, and made it 25 percent. As a result of that, the economy is growing. With a rather stagnant economy, the stock market a year ago was less than 8,000; that is, the Dow Jones. It is over 10,500 today. The Nasdaq is over 50 percent. For the last three quarters, we now have significant economic growth. During the last two quarters, one quarter was 8 percent and the other quarter was 4.4 percent. We have had the most significant rapid expansion of job growth and economic growth in the last several months. In the last 6 months, according to the Wade survey, we have added about 300-some thousand jobs. If you look at the household survey, it is a couple of million jobs.”