On the recordDecember 20, 2011
Mr. Speaker, families are doing holiday shopping, planning budgets. So are employers. Now we're being asked to accept a 2-month plan here, $166 per family, and a message of: Trust us and we'll come back. Congress needs to be doing more than rehashing this again. We need to be dealing with unemployment, the deficit, and not just spending more time over 2 months. We're telling families to accept $166 instead of $1,000. For that $166, that's about a week and half of groceries for a family of four. For that same family of four, we're talking about 12 months of gas bills, 11 months of diapers, 10 electric utility bills, 9 months of baby formula, 8 months of cable, 7 months of auto insurance, 6 weeks of groceries, 5 months of gasoline, four student loan payments, three car payments, two credit card bills, and one mortgage payment for your house.
