[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 152 (Wednesday, October 12, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H6784]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     JOBS OUGHT TO BE TOP PRIORITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, I certainly agree with my colleague from 
North Carolina that it is time for us to not just reassess but readjust 
our policies in Afghanistan, scale it down and bring the troops home.
  There's another area of consensus that I hope we can focus on: Most 
people agree that employment, that jobs, ought to be a priority for 
this Congress, for the government, for American business. Much of what 
you hear on Capitol Hill about creating jobs and employment is very, 
very contentious. Yet what is complex and controversial in Congress is 
not so hard when you move off the Hill, when you look at what the 
experts suggest, when you look at what the American people will 
support, for the shape of a future recovery is emerging in terms of a 
consensus about what we should do. I think we probably will; the 
question is when.
  First and foremost, it is important that we rebalance our long-term 
programs and priorities. But in the short term, it is not only 
important to keep the spending levels where they are, it would be 
disastrous to cut it further. Chairman Bernanke said just last week 
that short-term increases can strengthen economic demand with a long-
term adjustment to strengthen our balance sheet by reducing the 
deficit.
  One of the first places to start is rebuilding and renewing America. 
Experts agree we have vast unmet needs; the Society of Civil Engineers 
suggests $2.3 trillion that should be spent in the next 5 years on 
repairing our roads and our bridges, extending and enhancing our 
transit system. There are two dozen cities across America that are 
looking at reintroducing a modern streetcar which can be done quickly 
and will spark investment in those communities that have that 
opportunity.
  We have aging and inadequate water systems that leak 6 billion 
gallons of water a day, enough to fill 9,000 Olympic-sized swimming 
pools that would stretch from Washington, DC, to Pittsburgh. We have an 
aging and ineffective electrical grid. We have pipelines that need to 
be upgraded for safety. There is environmental cleanup, especially 
expensive Superfund sites that otherwise will continue to put a cloud 
over the adjacent businesses and governments.

                              {time}  1010

  This will create millions of family-wage jobs in the course of the 
next year. It is important to deal with our health care system, which 
is creating jobs. But, unfortunately, it's creating jobs now very 
inefficiently. We pay more for healthcare than anybody else in the 
world, by far. Compared to what other developed countries produce, we 
have mediocre results as a whole. Spectacular for some Americans, but 
overall, Americans die sooner, get sick more often, stay sick longer. 
By accelerating the health care reforms to provide value instead of 
volume of health care, we can squeeze more value and the right type of 
employment that will be sustainable over time and help make Americans 
healthier.
  There is, Mr. Speaker, no question that we need in fact to pay for 
this over the long term. But the path here is something that most of 
the American public will in fact agree on, and the experts have a 
consensus that this is where we start, with tax equity, making sure 
everybody is paying their fair share adjusting user fees for 
infrastructure to account for inflation--not anything immediate, but 
over the course of the next year or two--to be able to have the cash 
flow to meet our obligations for transportation, for water; 
reinstituting the Superfund tax that expired in 1995, leaving 
communities with the toxic legacy.
  It's important to consider a financial transaction fee, something 
that other European countries have--that England has had for over a 
century--that would in fact give stability to our stock market. This is 
something that's within our capacity, Mr. Speaker. I hope we do it 
sooner rather than later.

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