Granting Authority to Committee on Education and Labor for Purposes of its Investigation Into Underground Coal Mining Safety

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Mr. JORDAN of Ohio. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the people have spoken. They said stop the ridiculous spending, and with the YouCut proposal, they have said stop the ridiculous spending which incentivizes the wrong behavior and insults basic American values. Think about the old welfare system. Think about what it said in particular to the single mother out there. It said, Don't get a job, don't get married, have more children, and we will pay you more money. That's exactly the wrong kind of incentives you want to send in government policies, but that's exactly where the Democrats' proposal takes us back to.

Our amendment would change that. Our previous question would change that.

Democrats want to move back in the wrong direction. We think that it's completely the wrong way to go, particularly at a time, particularly at a time when we have a $1.4 trillion deficit, a $12 trillion national debt. It is the wrong thing to do.

You know, one of the things that makes our country so special, one of the things that makes America the greatest Nation in history is this simple little concept: parents make sacrifices for their children so that when they grow up, they have life better than we did. And when they, in turn, become adults and become parents, they'll do the same things for their kids. Each generation in this country has done that for the next.

Now we find ourselves with the policymakers, where the political class is making decisions that say spend now, focus on the moment, and send the bill to somebody else. And it is wrong. It is wrong to trap people in this welfare system. It is wrong to keep spending and spending. It is wrong for future generations of Americans, and that's why, Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question.

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