Providing For Consideration of Conference Report on H.R. 1, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Floor Speech

Providing For Consideration of Conference Report on H.R. 1, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 -- (House of Representatives - February 13, 2009)

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Mr. COLE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Madam Speaker, I rise to oppose the rule and the underlying legislation, H.R. 1. This underlying bill is unfocused, it's bloated, and it's self-defeating. It won't stimulate our economy. It will certainly stimulate growth in the size of government.

The bill fails in four basic areas:

First, its tax cuts are too small, too temporary and simply don't encourage people to purchase products or employers to hire people.

Second, much of the spending in the bill is recurring and will add to the size of government and ultimately slow future growth.

Third, our country is at war and yet nothing in this bill helps those protecting our freedom. And by ignoring legitimate procurement issues, we fail to take a measure that would actually stimulate the economy.

Finally, Madam Speaker, this bill is sold as an infrastructure bill, yet only 7 percent of the spending is actually on infrastructure. We can do better than this. We can have a bipartisan, open process and pass legislation we can all be proud of.

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