Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, we've had promise after promise after promise after promise that the Republicans were going to pay attention to what the people wanted. And what the people want is jobs, jobs, jobs.

I rise in opposition to this amendment, Madam Chair. I want to point out that these Republican cuts that have been proposed are draconian, they are extremist, they are bad for America. They are bad for our economic recovery. Everybody knows that we just came out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. We call it the Great Recession. We're just coming out of it, even though most Americans don't feel it yet. Certainly those folk up on Wall Street who got the bailouts, they feel the recovery, and they are back to the huge bonuses and salaries. They are looking at this Republican Congress to release them from all of the regulatory measures that the Democrats put in place over the last 2 years so that they can continue to party. And while they party, their friends here in Congress on the Republican side of the aisle are busy trying to balance the budget on the backs of working men and women in this country. That's what the CR proposal is all about.

It came out on Friday at 8 p.m.; they issued their plan, and here we are on Tuesday arguing the merits--or demerits, actually--of this plan that is nothing other than a plan that undermines America's future. This plan is going to cause severe job cuts which will hurt our economic recovery.

It is ironic that as reported in the Wall Street Journal, a new Wall Street Journal survey of economists shows that they expect the economy to expand at the fastest pace since 2003--a recovery that would be certainly jeopardized, snuffed out, by this GOP plan. This is going to cut at least 300,000 private sector jobs, according to an analysis by staff at the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. These cuts, by the way, these 300,000 cuts are less than half of the total infrastructure cuts in the bill. These Republican cuts in investments in roads, bridges, transit and rail include a cut of $1.4 billion in clean water State revolving loan fund moneys, which is $23 million for Georgia; and include a cut of $6.3 billion in high-speed intercity rail funding. That's going to cause people to not be able to go out and work to make that investment in America's future a reality.

A $75 million cut in the TIGER II Program, those are transit projects, is what will happen in Georgia, just in the State of Georgia. So we are talking about massive job losses, 300,000 just with transportation and infrastructure projects, Madam Chairman. The consequence of that extends into our future. It is actually strangling the future of millions of Americans, both working and poor people.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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