Jobs Lost
Floor Speech
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Ms. FOXX. I think a lot of people don't realize one of the things that made us such a successful Nation has been the extremely reliable energy that we've had over the last 200 years. We developed energy and learned how to use it very, very well. I believe we are the smartest people and the most innovative people in the world, but what helped us become a manufacturing giant was not just our intelligence, not just our innovation, but our reliable sources of energy.
I worry a great deal about the pie-in-the-sky promises that have been made about alternatives. I, like you, want to see us use every alternative that we can, including foot power and walking a lot more, but I do think that we have a problem because we are hearing these unrealistic expectations of how we could go to alternatives and simply abandon carbon. I don't think we can do that.
You pointed out that our colleagues, who were here the hour before, talked about the creation of 250,000 new green jobs. I want to point out that I have heard that Spain, which went very much to green jobs and alternative energy, now has the highest unemployment rate in Europe. It appears that many of our colleagues have established Europe as the standard to which we should aspire, but when you start breaking down what the situation actually is there, you will see that simply making the goal of switching these jobs that we have now in manufacturing that are going to go away with this national energy tax, that are going to go away with the national health tax, all of these new taxes that they want to put on are going to throw jobs out of this country.
We need to look a little bit deeper. I think that so much of what's happened, particularly in the last year and a half as promises were made, lots of promises were made--a lot of those promises were made in 2006, which have also not been lived up to--the American people are beginning to see that it's easy in a campaign to make promises. It's a lot more difficult once you're in office to fulfill those promises. I think that's one of the things that we're seeing now.
We've seen a tremendous change in our economy since the Democrats took control of the Congress. They keep talking about problems that they inherited, problems that President Obama inherited, but as I said earlier, they conveniently leave out the fact that in '07, '08 and up until this time, they have been in charge of the Congress, both Houses of the Congress. It's the Congress that establishes the budget. It's the Congress that appropriates the money, and much of the problems that we've had have come from the expenditure of money.
I wanted to point out something. I know that we talked today, as you said earlier, about jobs, jobs, jobs and that 134 of us came to the floor today. I think we should have had magnifying glasses to say that we're looking for the jobs that have been promised to us. That's what was promised by President Obama, promised by the majority in the House, but that we ought to talk about the fact that during the month of June alone, the national debt increased by $223.7 billion, and as of June 30, 2009, the national debt had increased $2.9 trillion since the Democrats took control of Congress on January 3, 2007. That works out to an increase of $9,342.83 per person.
We know now that the American people are getting very, very concerned about that debt and about our deficit. And you pointed out the deficit earlier, but we have to keep pointing out to the American people who's in charge, who spends the money, and who's responsible for putting us into the situation that we're in.
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