Waiving Requirement of Clause 6(a) of Rule XIII with Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions and Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Florida for yielding time, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
You know, he mentioned that we have no problem on one day voting for tax decreases and then the next day voting against unemployment benefits. Unfortunately, our colleagues across the aisle haven't given us an opportunity to vote for tax decreases in this session of Congress. Would that we'd had that opportunity, we certainly would have, because the money that the hardworking people of this country earn belongs to them. It doesn't belong to the government. That's what our colleagues across the aisle think. They want to control everything in this country, including all of the money that the good citizens of this country work hard to earn.
Mr. Speaker, today I rise in opposition to this same-day rule on unemployment insurance.
When the White House economic advisors released their report back in January 2009, they concluded that if we just borrowed $1 trillion, the stimulus would stop the unemployment rate from increasing beyond 8 percent. Here we are with a 9.5 percent unemployment rate, the largest deficit in our history, and the national debt at almost $14 trillion. The response of the liberal Democrat leadership is to add $30 billion more to the deficit by not offsetting another extension of Federal unemployment benefits.
The American people want real economic growth and private job creation. If job creation is the number one priority for the Democrats, I'd hate to see what the number two priority is, given the dismal numbers that they've created, particularly in the last 18 months.
During consideration of H.R. 5618, the Democrats' $34 billion unpaid for Restoration of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act, before the July 4 recess, Democrats opposed the Republican motion to recommit, which would have paid for the extension.
Specifically, the Republican motion to recommit would have used $34 billion in unspent stimulus funds to cover the cost of extending expired unemployment benefits through November 30. This was a fiscally responsible motion which recognized that the American people want Washington to stop spending money we don't have. Adding insurmountable amounts of spending to our soaring deficit helps no one.
Painting Republicans as being unfeeling and uncaring about those who have lost their jobs is inappropriate. We are very concerned with those people, and we want to do everything that we can to help them. But putting us more and more into debt and increasing the deficit is not going to do that. And our colleagues across the aisle should have learned that by now with their very, very bad policies.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, when asked on July 4th are we headed in the right direction, Vice President Biden answered, ``The economic initiatives that we took, they're working. They're working.'' Vice President Biden's repeatedly touted the failed stimulus package, and has recently coined what he calls ``the summer of recovery.'' Yet when asked about concerns that the stimulus is not working he acknowledges that unemployment remains, ``unacceptably high.''
You know, if we are in a summer of recovery, we can't quite understand why we continue to have high unemployment in this country. When asked by ABC's This Week host Jake Tapper in an interview aired Sunday if the administration ``is getting enough credit'' for the Wall Street bill, the health care bill, and the economic recovery act in light of polls showing the majority of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, Mr. Biden said, ``The vast majority of the American people and a lot of people really involved don't even know what's inside the packages.'' On the contrary, for the first time in a long time the American people are taking a very strong interest in what Congress is doing, reading the bills and voicing their opinions.
Eighteen months after President Obama's $862 billion so-called stimulus, which really cost $1.2 trillion if you include the $347 billion that the Congressional Budget Office estimates for interest payments on the borrowed money, as my colleagues said across the aisle, there are still five job seekers for every job opening, and we have a 9.5 percent unemployment rate. I appreciate my colleague from Florida helping me make that point that we still have a problem despite the fact that there have been so many policies passed here and so much money spent. We have a 9.5 percent unemployment rate.
Instead of facing reality, we are hearing that everything is going great. That is, everything except that which they might be able to somehow blame on the previous administration. Ignoring that virtually all of the jobs they are touting are government jobs, this misleading statistic doesn't represent net job growth, thereby omitting all the jobs lost since the liberals seized complete control of Washington.
Doesn't it really seem discordant to be promoting unemployment benefits when Democrats are touting this as the summer of recovery? If the Democrats' stimulus were so successful, why do we need to increase our debt by $30 billion more for additional Federal unemployment benefits? Rather than acknowledge their stimulus plan failed and the American people were sold a bill of goods, the President and his administration continue to propose new government programs that increase the deficit. This is wrong. The American people know it.
I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I know our colleagues again continue to want to rewrite history, but it's just not something we're going to let you do.
Our economy was doing great until you all took over the Congress in January of 2007. You keep blaming what happened in the last few months of President Bush's Presidency on President Bush. But you were in control of Congress. You've been in control. And you have to take the responsibility for what happened. The job losses came on your watch.
We had a $200 billion deficit when you took over the Congress, and you have caused the deficit to go up. It is Democrat policies which have created the problems, not the Republican policies.
On Monday, President Obama took to the Rose Garden to criticize Republicans for insisting that new government spending to extend the Federal unemployment insurance program be paid for by cutting government spending elsewhere. Ironically, in another speech in the Rose Garden last November, President Obama took the opposite position, touting his signing an extension that was ``fully paid for.'' And this is his quote: I would also like to announce I just signed into law a bill that will help grow our economy, save and create new jobs, and provide relief to struggling families and businesses. Now it's important to note that the bill I sign will not add to our deficit. It is fully paid for and so it is fiscally responsible.
Those remarks were made by President Obama on November 6, 2009. So he was for paying for spending before he was against it.
On June 28, Speaker Pelosi made statements indicating the best way to create new jobs is to hand out more unemployment checks. This is her quote: This is one of the biggest stimuluses to our economy. Economists will tell you this money is spent quickly. It injects demand into the economy and it is job-creating. It creates jobs faster than almost any other initiative that you can name.
This is news to a lot of economists.
I wanted to share also a portion of a Wall Street Journal article from Tuesday entitled, ``Stimulating Unemployment.'' This is the quote: ``Only last week, Vice President Joe Biden was hailing the stimulus for saving and creating three million jobs. This week the White House says we need even more stimulus in the form of jobless checks to make up for the jobs his original spending stimulus didn't create.''
The one possibility the President and congressional Democrats won't entertain is that their own spending and taxing and regulating and labor union favoritism have become the main hindrances to job creation. Since February 2009, the jobless rate has climbed to 9.5 percent from 8.1 percent, and private industry has shed two million jobs. The overall economy has been expanding for at least a year, but employers still don't seem confident enough to add new workers. The economists who sold us the stimulus say it's a mystery. But maybe employers are afraid to hire because they don't know what costs government will impose on them next.
In the immediate policy case, Democrats are going so far as to subsidize more unemployment. If you subsidize something, you get more of it. So if you pay people not to work, they often decide not to work or at least to delay looking or decline a less-than-perfect job offer holding out for something that may or may not materialize.
The economic consensus which includes Obama administration economists in their previous lives couldn't be clearer on this. In a 1990 study for the National Bureau for Economic Research, labor economist Lawrence Katz found that the results indicate that a 1-week increase in potential benefit duration increases the average duration of the unemployment spells of unemployment insurance recipients by 0.16 to 20 weeks, 16 to 20 weeks.
A March 2010 economic report by Michael Farrell of JP Morgan Chase examined several studies and concluded that lengthened availability of jobless benefits has raised the unemployment rate by 1.5 percent points.
A 2006 NBER study by Raj Chetty of U.C. Berkeley on a related subject begins: It is well known that unemployment benefits raise unemployment durations.
President Obama has said that this is a misguided notion and that attitude reflects a lack of faith in the American people. Yet Democrats have consistently passed legislation which takes away the choices and freedoms of the American people. That is the true reflection of a lack of faith in the American people.
And with that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I will just point out again to our colleagues across the aisle that the reason we had a surplus when Bill Clinton was President was because Republicans were in charge of the Congress, and the reason we had a deficit the last 2 years of the Bush administration is because Democrats were in charge of the Congress.
We'll continue to remind you of that.
I now would like to yield such time as he may consume to my distinguished colleague from California (Mr. Dreier).
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I would point out to my colleagues across the aisle, Mr. Speaker, that Democrats are totally in control of Congress. They have been since January of 2007. In the House, the number is 255-178. There are two vacancies. In the Senate, it's 59-41, so the Democrats are clearly in charge, but they continue to blame Republicans who are very much in the minority. The American people are seeing through that, Mr. Speaker. They understand who has the responsibility. And I think, what the quote from Mr. Kyl is saying is that the money belongs to the citizens of this country.
I thank my colleague from Florida for bringing it up. It proves the point. Our friends on the other side of the aisle think that all the money in this country belongs to the government and that it's up to the Members of Congress to decide who is going to get that money. They joined in with President Obama in believing that they should spread around the wealth, take from some and give to others. I think we have heard that philosophy before, but that isn't what the American people believe. They believe that they worked hard for their money; they should keep it.
And I would also say to my colleague across the aisle, is it right and decent to saddle the American people with debt that is going to haunt us for many, many generations? Children not yet born are going to be given this debt while our friends across the aisle fund their pet projects and take from those that they wish to take from and spend where they want to.
There wouldn't need to have been any kind of wait because, again, you are in the majority. You could do this.
I want to say again, Republicans are very sympathetic to those who have lost their jobs, but the problems came when our colleagues across the aisle began irresponsible spending when they took over the Congress, adding rules and regulations. We know what drives jobs away. It's increased government spending and it's increased rules and regulations.
I think that we have to point out the liberal Democrat agenda has failed. Our friends across the aisle need to go back to the drawing board and come back to the American people with real solutions to their real problems.
We are in touch with those folks. I go home every weekend and I talk to the people in my district and they tell me they are very concerned about the future of this country. I can't tell you, Mr. Speaker, how many people tell me every weekend, I am frightened to death for the future of this country based on what is happening in Washington these days.
This isn't the time to dither and blame the Republican minority for the disappointing collapse of governments we have seen since the liberal majority seized control of Congress in 2007.
As I said, my colleague from Florida said earlier that job creation is the number one priority for Democrats. Well, obviously, they are missing the mark. Their spending programs have destroyed, not created, jobs.
Albert Einstein is credited with saying the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, our colleagues keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results. They are not going to get different results as long as they have these irresponsible policies.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this same-day rule, reject the liberal agenda that continues to distract from private sector job creation and getting our economy back on its feet.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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