On the recordJuly 20, 2010
Well, I'd like to follow up on your point about unemployment benefits. The Republicans support helping people when they're down on their luck. There is no question about it. There has been extension after extension. Our point and our principle on this whole issue has been don't make matters worse for people by adding to the debt, by adding to the uncertainty about the economy, by frightening more consumers into saving more of their money. You pay for this bill. Our point was, White House, congressional Democrats, you haven't even spent one half of that stimulus money yet. You know, some of it has been allocated, but you still have nearly half of it left. Rather than waste it on what you've wasted it on, I want to talk for a second about our just creating government jobs. Why don't we pay for the unemployment benefits with that money? Let's start just stimulating private sector jobs. Again, we've lost more than 3 million since the stimulus took effect. Dr. Burgess, you know, people back home look at some of the wildly exaggerated claims from the stimulus. Do you remember all of the phantom congressional districts? This White House actually made up districts that don't exist today and credited them with certain job creations. Some of the examples of job creation were just wild--$1 million for each pair of boots. That it created jobs is crazy.…
