[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 27 (Friday, February 17, 2012)]
[House]
[Page H906]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     GETTING COUNTRY BACK ON TRACK

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Madam Speaker, well, we're going to take up legislation 
which is targeted to fix the reimbursement for doctors, which is 
absolutely essential to Medicare. This threat should go away forever. 
We should make a permanent fix and not pretend that we can just keep 
dragging this on without jeopardizing seniors.
  Unemployment, we need to extend that for people who can't find work. 
They lost their jobs through no fault of their own. They can't find 
work; we need to help them out.
  But borrowing $100 billion from the Social Security trust fund under 
the premise that the consumer spending generated will bring about 
economic recovery and create jobs, that's the Larry Summers principle 
from the stimulus era. Look, that doesn't work. You want to create 
jobs, you want to borrow $100 billion, let's borrow $100 billion, 
finance the transportation bill that the Republicans pulled from the 
floor this week, and put a few million people to work rebuilding the 
crumbling infrastructure in this country with all made-in-America 
goods. That would be an effective way to get this country back on 
track, not Social Security tax cuts.

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