Joe Cunningham: “I do not plan on taking the full 5 minutes. But we have just gotten through with the defense bill and the Select…”

“I do not plan on taking the full 5 minutes. But we have just gotten through with the defense bill and the Select Committee on Intelligence has just passed its conference report, and our Nation is at war, and above the regular amount the President has seen fit to give a $40 billion supplemental to try not only to help people in New York, people at the Pentagon, but this Nation heal itself. Post-September 11 has seen over 700,000 jobs lost, and yet we still have 99 percent of the American people that have their jobs, but if someone is one of those of that 1 percent that has lost their job, it is critical to them. Many of the people in my own district that has happened to. We tried to protect those jobs, and I think that we need to do more. We also need to help people temporarily. But even more important than that, Mr. Speaker, we need to stimulate the growth of the new and the old jobs through different measures, economic measures. Seventy-five percent of the jobs created are created by small business in this country, and I believe that tax relief for businesses will act as a stimulus that will enable those businesses to hire more people, to hire back some of those 700,000 that have lost their jobs.”