On the recordJanuary 26, 2010
Even over the weekend they were saying that yes, we've lost 7 million jobs but we've created X number of million jobs. The real issue is the net job loss, because those are folks that are out of work. That is kind of a hollow thing to brag about. Another thing about the chart. It assumes that the Bush tax cuts from 2001 and 2003 expire. Hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes are in those numbers, and those numbers are still as bad as they look and with the trillions of dollars of deficit that are accumulating. Now, the bad news about this is that we're not going to pay that debt off. I had a fifth grade student in Fredericksburg, Texas. I was doing a town hall meeting for a school that was K-12. A little fellow raised his hand and said, Mr. Congressman, what's the plan to pay off the national debt? And I looked at him. I said, What? This is a technique you use to try to gain time to try to think of what your answer might be. He said, Yes, sir. What's the plan to pay off the national debt? I said, Young man, that's the single best question I've ever been asked. There is no plan to pay off the national debt. So what we are doing is we're putting a floor under future generations' tax rates, because this cumulative debt, America will constantly pay the interest on this debt from now until eternity.
