[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 16 (Thursday, February 3, 2011)]
[Senate]
[Pages S499-S500]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              THE ECONOMY

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have a long way to go before our economy 
is back to normal. Ask any American and they will tell you: We have a 
lot more jobs to create and fill, a lot more homes to save, and a lot 
more consumer confidence to recover.
  I hear every day from families in Nevada who still need us to fight 
for them. I know every Senator hears the same from citizens in their 
State.
  There are currently bits and pieces of good news. They are not 
enough, that is for sure. But the Dow Jones opened this morning above 
12,000. That is the highest in many years. Manufacturing is rising more 
than expected. Consumer spending is beating forecasts also. Corporate 
profits are higher than anyone predicted. We got a decent jobs number

[[Page S500]]

today, better than most economists predicted--not good enough but 
decent. So it is not all bad news. But I am not satisfied hearing that 
things are simply better than expected. Nevada, similar to every other 
State, is still hurting, and our job is not to beat expectations, it is 
to beat unemployment and beat back the deficit. We cannot assume we are 
back to normal every time we hear encouraging news. We don't have that 
luxury because it is not true. We can't let our guard down and we can't 
waste any more time on symbolic votes.
  The fight to repeal the patients' rights enshrined in the health 
reform law is behind us now. The arguments have been made, the votes 
have been counted, and similar to the majority of the American people, 
the Senate has decided the law of the land is better than the broken 
system it replaced.
  I don't wish to spend a lot of time talking about health care because 
the vote speaks for itself, but I will say this. Those who want to deny 
Americans the right to afford a healthy life had their say in 2008, 
when President Obama was elected on the promise of change. They had 
their say in 2009, when we first passed this law. They had their say in 
2010, when we finalized it. Now they have had their say in 2011, when 
they tried to repeal it. Each time the votes fell on the side of 
patients, patients' rights--more rights, not fewer. The Senate voted 
each time to put people, not insurance companies, in control. The 
Senate voted each time for health, not sickness. So it is time to move 
on.
  Let's talk about jobs. We are on a jobs bill right now, the Federal 
Aviation Administration authorization. The Aviation Modernization Act, 
which is this bill, is to bring to America modern air travel, travel 
into the 21st century. This legislation will create hundreds of 
thousands of jobs--not hundreds, not thousands but hundreds of 
thousands. That is why we are fighting so hard for this legislation. It 
is a bipartisan piece of legislation. It is not a Democratic bill. It 
is not Republican. It is a bipartisan bill. The same bill passed the 
Senate unanimously last year. So I hope we come together in the spirit 
of compromise we all promised and finish it as quickly as possible. 
This bill alone will not eradicate unemployment, but it will help. It 
is going to move us further toward that goal, and the quicker we pass 
it the quicker 280,000 Americans will breathe easier by knowing a good, 
consistent paycheck is on the way.
  We are all concerned about the deficit. There is nothing more 
important than creating jobs, though. We can never have a healthy 
economy when we have 15 million people out of work. We can never have a 
balanced budget when we have 15 million people out of work.
  The deficit is something that is very important. Jobs, as I 
indicated, will work toward solving that problem, but it is not the 
only way to strengthen our economy. We also need to keep digging out of 
the fiscal hole we inherited over the last decade. In the short term, 
we can responsibly cut spending. In the long term, we can cut our 
deficit. There are some things we have to be careful to avoid, such as 
jeopardizing the full faith and credit of our great country. That is 
what will happen if we don't raise our Nation's debt limit. If we don't 
act, if we allow the country to default on our legal obligations, we 
will send our economy into default for the first time in its history. 
That will certainly not save a single job or save a single home from 
foreclosure or encourage the domestic and foreign investment we need to 
grow. It will be just the opposite. Each of these steps is an important 
stride toward recovery. Together, they are a powerful leap forward.
  We might be on the right track and heading in the right direction, 
but we still have a ways to travel. Let's avoid the temptation to get 
distracted and derailed. Let's keep driving toward that goal. If we 
work toward putting people back to work, soon Nevada and every other 
State will not just read good news in a headline here or there, they 
will see it before their eyes--in their workplaces and in their wallets 
and throughout our country.

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