[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 96 (Thursday, June 24, 2010)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1198]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                NO, GOP, YOU DON'T GET THE CAR KEYS BACK

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. GENE GREEN

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 24, 2010

  Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Madam Speaker, I submit the following 
article: ``No, GOP, you don't get the car keys back'' by Gene Lyons of 
the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as printed in The Baytown Sun, May 25, 
2010.

       One minor mystery of the Obama administration is whether 
     the president has actually believed that the nation's most 
     intractable problems could be solved by the wonder-working 
     power of bipartisanship and the emollient balm of his 
     personality. He wouldn't be the first politician whose ego 
     convinced him he could sweet-talk his bitterest opponents.
       Many Democrats think that the White House's ultimately 
     futile quest for Republican health care votes only gave GOP 
     imaginers more time to frighten gullible voters with 
     falsehoods about ``death panels'' and such, weakening public 
     support.
       Until quite recently, it's been much the same with jobs and 
     the economy. Despite unanimous Republican opposition to the 
     administrations $787 billion stimulus bill and universal 
     predictions of doom, the White House has often acted as if 
     the party's reasonable leadership would eventually return to 
     the politics of negotiation and compromise.
       Instead, we've seen the GOP increasingly dominated by its 
     irrational Chicken Little wing, seeing grim portents and 
     predicting doom. Continuing their party's decades-long war on 
     Arithmetic, Republicans act as if the highest form of 
     patriotism is to demand tax cuts even as a USA Today analysis 
     documents that ``Americans paid their lowest level of taxes 
     last year since Harry Truman's presidency . . . Federal, 
     state and local taxes--including income, property, sales and 
     other taxes--consumed 9.2 percent of all personal income in 
     2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic 
     Analysis reports.'' The historic average has been 12 percent.
       Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the 
     U.S. economy generated 290,000 jobs in April, the strongest 
     month in four years. That brings new jobs created in 2010 to 
     573,000.
       And how did GOP savants respond to the good news? Citing 
     the unemployment rate, House Minority Leader John Boehner 
     called it ``disappointing news . . . Washington Democrats 
     have no coherent agenda to create jobs, and no interest in 
     doing anything but continue to spend money we don't have on 
     `stimulus' programs that don't work.''
       Don't work? The National Journal's Ronald Brownstein puts 
     things in perspective: ``If the economy produces jobs over 
     the next eight months at the same pace as it did over the 
     past four months, the nation will have created more jobs in 
     2010 alone than it did over the entire eight years of George 
     W. Bush's presidency.'' It's a fact. Should current growth 
     persist, the U.S. economy will gain roughly 1.7 million jobs 
     this year. From 2001 through 2008, the Bush economy generated 
     about 1 million.
       Of course with 15.3 million Americans out of work, we're 
     far from being out of the woods. Indeed, the nation's 
     quickening economy has actually led to a slight uptick in the 
     unemployment rate, as thousands who'd given up seeking work 
     rejoined the labor market. But we can definitely see a path 
     to greater prosperity.
       Meanwhile, Republicans keep baying at the moon. On a recent 
     ``Fox News Sunday,'' former House Speaker Newt Gingrich 
     gravely announced that ``The (Obama) secular-socialist 
     machine represents as great a threat to America as Nazi 
     Germany or the Soviet Union once did.''
       Even host Chris Wallace was taken aback, asking ``Mr. 
     Speaker, respectfully, isn't that wildly over the top?'' 
     Gingrich didn't think so.
       A sane political movement would keep a prating coxcomb like 
     Gingrich off television. Whether Newt actually believes this 
     rubbish, or is merely following the Tea Party fife and drum 
     corps around the bend, strikes me as of little interest. 
     Politically, it's pointless to reason with crazy people--
     make-believe or real.
       Speaking recently in Buffalo, president Obama signaled that 
     maybe he gets it. ``When I took office,'' he said ``we were 
     losing 750,000 jobs a month. . . . I had just inherited a 
     $1.3 trillion deficit from the previous administration, so 
     the last thing I wanted to do was spend money on a recovery 
     package, or help the American auto industry keep its doors 
     open, or prevent the collapse of Wall Street banks whose 
     irresponsibility had helped cause this crisis. But what I 
     knew was if I didn't act boldly and I didn't act quickly . . 
     . we could have risked an even greater disaster.''
       Then, at a Manhattan fundraiser, Obama came up with the 
     perfect metaphor. He said that Republicans had made a 
     calculated decision to oppose all White House initiatives, 
     and to hope for the worst. ``So after they drove the car into 
     the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it 
     back, now they want the keys back. No! You can't drive! We 
     don't want to have to go back into the ditch! We just got the 
     car out!''
       Give 'em hell, Barrack. Over and over until they get the 
     message.

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