[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 181 (Tuesday, November 29, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H7902]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    FAILURE OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE

  (Mr. BURGESS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BURGESS. Mr. Speaker, it was about a week ago that the Joint 
Select Committee announced that they were unable to reach an agreement 
in finding $1.2 trillion in cuts before their deadline. Now, could they 
have done this without really breaking a sweat? And the answer is yes, 
they could have. The entire target for which they were reaching, the 
$1.2 trillion to $1.5 trillion, could have been cut with a single act: 
repealing the Affordable Care Act.
  One point five trillion dollars in new spending that this country 
cannot afford is contained within the confines of the Affordable Care 
Act. Now, look, Washington needs to quit pointing fingers and get back 
to work if we expect to put America back on a path to prosperity. 
American families are making cuts at home, and Washington should do the 
same thing. Families do not have the luxury of missing their deadlines, 
and neither should Washington.
  Americans must reduce our deficit, and we need to put people back to 
work. The House has passed more than 25 bills that would affect 
employment. Twenty of these House-passed jobs bills are stalled in the 
Senate. You can find out more about them going to jobs.gop.gov. Let's 
get people back to work and focus on ways to reduce the deficit. That 
means creating more taxpayers, not more taxes.

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