[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 31, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H1761]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   THE ADMINISTRATION GIVETH AND THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS TAKETH AWAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, we have now passed the budget in the 
House, one in the Senate, and they are starting a conference committee. 
We are going to have a product out here one of these days soon, but 
this budget will be perfect proof that the administration giveth and 
the Republican Congress taketh away. The administration gives massive 
cuts to the rich; the Republican Congress takes Federal unemployment 
benefits away from average Americans. That is the way it has been in 
this administration.
  Millionaires get an average cut on their taxes of $112,925. The 
average American, on the other hand, gets $676. Why should a 
millionaire get $112,000 and the average working person in this country 
gets only $676? They have no answer for that.
  They have an answer that is sort of strange. They say, well, these 
tax cuts are going to allow jobs to occur. If you give a lot of money 
to rich people, suddenly, miraculously, jobs will kind of sprout up out 
in the fields or in the factories. No proof of that whatsoever.
  We have been following the President's ideas for three-and-a-half 
years, and this will be the first administration since the Hoover 
administration, since the Hoover administration, 1928 to 1932, that the 
administration has not produced one single job. They have lost jobs.
  February was a particularly good month. You read the newspaper and 
they say, oh, the economy is recovering. We do not have to give 
unemployment benefits to anybody because the economy is recovering. How 
do we know the economy is recovering? We know it because the stock 
market is going up. What does that mean to somebody that does not have 
a job, the stock market is going up? They spent all their savings and 
their 401(k) and everything else to keep afloat, and this 
administration says because the stock market is going up we have a 
recovery and we do not need to extend unemployment benefits, in spite 
of the fact that we have $20 billion sitting in the trust.
  All it requires is the President to say to the Congress, move it. 
Republicans will never do it. They do not care.

                              {time}  1930

  But the fact is that in February, in this recovery, 21,000 jobs were 
created. That is 400 jobs for every State. Now, maybe in North Dakota 
400 jobs is quite a lot, but in California it is nothing.
  Not one single one of those jobs was a private sector job. Remember, 
we gave all that money to those rich people and they were going to 
create these jobs? They did not create one single job in February. That 
is a jobless recovery, and the President ought to be able to see that. 
We could see it in December when we started talking about this.
  In my State, 80,000 people have gone off unemployment since December; 
and the government says, well, we have this $20 billion but we are 
saving it. For what? To give another tax break, perhaps. You have to 
ask yourself what kind of an administration is this. They talk about 
compassionate conservatism, but I do not know what that means anymore.
  We went to a workers' bus ride today, people who come to this city to 
tell us their problems. This guy who had been working in a paper mill 
up in Maine said, my grandfather worked in that mill, my father worked 
in that mill, I thought I would retire in that mill; but I lost my job, 
and now I have to go to the food bank to make it.
  Think about it. Think about the loss of dignity. Think about the 
inability to feed your kids. But the President sits down in the White 
House and says, well, they do not need it; they just need to try a 
little harder, or maybe they can take their tax cut. They do not get a 
tax cut; they do not have a job.
  For every person unemployed in this country there are three of them 
looking for every job that is created. The only reason the numbers have 
come down at all is because the President decided that he would not 
count them if they were not looking anymore.
  This budget is a fraud and the American people should know it.

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