[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 30 (Friday, February 13, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E291]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          PERSONAL EXPLANATION

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                       HON. CHRISTOPHER JOHN LEE

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Friday, February 13, 2009

  Mr. LEE of New York. Madam Speaker, I regret that I do not have the 
opportunity to participate in today's debate due to the need to be back 
in my district. I sincerely appreciate the Members of the House 
engaging in a moment of silence to honor the memory of those who lost 
their lives in last night's tragic accident in Clarence, NY.
  America's current economic crisis has hit western New York hard, and 
from the outset of this debate, I have expressed the need for a timely, 
fiscally responsible recovery plan that provides the economy with the 
jumpstart it needs to create jobs.
  This new Washington spending plan simply fails to meet this common-
sense standard of economic growth. It is far more focused on growing 
Washington than it is on stimulating job creation and had I been 
present I would have voted no.
  In many ways, this spending bill is inferior to its predecessor. It 
creates nearly just as many and expands more government programs while 
severely limiting tax relief for small businesses, which create most of 
our economy's new jobs. In fact, for every one dollar this spending 
bill devotes to small-business tax relief, Washington gets to keep more 
than 32 dollars for itself to create new government programs.
  Creating jobs in western New York has been at the top of my ``to-do'' 
list since before I ran for Congress, when I was helping run a family 
manufacturing business.
  That's why I helped craft a timely, fiscally responsible economic 
recovery plan that creates twice the jobs at half the cost of this 
Washington spending bill. Additionally, my recovery plan creates 
184,000 more jobs for New Yorkers than this spending bill.
  The plan I helped put together spurs job creation right now by 
providing relief for 100 percent of income taxpayers, preserving ``net 
operating loss carryback'' reforms that help small business weather 
tough economic times, and implementing a tax deduction equal to 20 
percent of income for those small businesses with 500 or fewer 
employees.
  Washington's refusal to reform its spending habits and focus its 
efforts on job creation puts significant taxpayer dollars at risk. In 
fact, the massive spending in this plan is enough to create budget 
deficits 2.5 times the size of President George W. Bush's deficits over 
the same 8-year period.

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