On the recordMarch 17, 2010
I wish to discuss the jobs legislation, known as the HIRE Act, on which the Senate will be voting tomorrow morning, and to express my deep concerns with the direction this bill has taken over the past few weeks. Ever since the collapse of the financial markets in late 2008, helping our economy should have been a priority for this deliberative body. However, it has taken more than a year for us to seriously address legislation that would promote permanent job growth. Several of my Finance Committee colleagues on both sides of the aisle put a lot of time and effort into the creation of a compromise jobs bill that Chairman Baucus and Senator Grassley were trying to move forward. I had high hopes that we might help thaw the partisan freeze that has had this Chamber gridlocked for so long. But then, just as it looked like we might see some light at the end of this bitter tunnel, the rug was pulled out from underneath us by the majority leader's inexplicable decision to hijack our work and alter it with a piece of legislation that he knew would replace cooperation with acrimony. But if that weren't enough, the majority leader added another slap in the face of the minority; he once again filled the amendment tree, thus shutting off the minority's ability to attempt to improve the bill.
