[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 128 (Wednesday, September 25, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5807-H5808]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            HUNDREDS ATTEND JOB FAIR IN GROTON, CONNECTICUT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from

[[Page H5808]]

Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, yesterday, in Groton, Connecticut, which 
is a community right on Long Island Sound, The Day Newspaper of New 
London hosted a job fair for the surrounding area, which I had the 
opportunity to attend for about an hour or so. And the good news is 
that there were 16 companies that were there, employers who had job 
openings who, again, were anxious to use the job fair as a chance to 
meet face-to-face with folks who attended.
  The distressing news, though, was that there were over 800 people who 
showed up for the event. The line wound out from the ballroom of the 
Groton Inn and Suites through the lobby and onto the sidewalk and into 
the parking lot; and, clearly, if anyone who was attending there, it 
was quite obvious that there was not even close to the number of 
openings to match up with the number of people who were in attendance.
  As I said, I had a chance to visit for a while, walked around, talked 
to a number of people, and was struck by the fact that the number one 
question on people's minds who, again, were carrying heavy burdens, 
some of them who had been out of work for as much as 18 months, 2 
years, a lot of young people who just graduated from college, carrying 
student loans, anxious to try and get a start in life and a way to pay 
the bills, the question was, Well, is Congress going to shut down the 
government?
  And it seemed sort of a little bit out of sync with the reality of 
what was going on in the room. But, in fact, thinking about it, I mean, 
it's very clear that the people there understood instinctively that a 
government shutdown in roughly 8 or 9 days is exactly the wrong thing 
that the U.S. economy needs right now, particularly in terms of 
fostering job growth and giving people confidence about the future.
  That event, compounded by a debt limit showdown, which now the 
Treasury Department announced this morning that on October 17 the 
borrowing authority of the U.S. Treasury, the full faith and credit of 
our country, is actually going to expire in terms of being able to pay 
the bills for our Nation.
  Whether it's our troops over in Afghanistan, whether it's the folks 
who protect us at our airports, whether it's the FBI, the Coast Guard 
which, again, my district is home of the Coast Guard Academy, the 
notion that our Nation, which has always honored its full faith and 
credit over the 230-plus years of its history, would somehow be put 
into doubt is, again, another one of these self-inflicted body blows 
that this institution is on the verge of inflicting, again, on a very 
fragile economy.
  When you looked in the faces of the people who were at that job fair 
yesterday, I'm very proud of the fact that I come from a State with 
very high educational attainment levels, really, in the top five in the 
country. What was clear was that you were talking to people who were, 
in many instances, very experienced employees, working in 
manufacturing, pharmaceutical, retail businesses, many of them with 
certainly strong educational backgrounds, with college degrees and 
post-college degrees.
  They're ready. They're ready to go out and support themselves and 
their families; and talking to them about food stamps, or this type of 
public assistance or that type of public assistance, that's not what 
they're looking for. They're looking for an economy that has a horizon 
so that employers and budget-makers and individuals who are so critical 
in terms of investment decisions in this country are going to have 
confidence about the fact that we're not going to capsize the world's 
financial markets by, basically, threatening the value of U.S. Treasury 
bonds, which is still the number one security in the world today.
  The question is whether in a month's time that's still going to be 
the case.
  It is time for this institution to start focusing on what people 
really get up and worry about every single day, which is about jobs, 
the economy, and the future of their families.
  I don't want to end on a totally depressing note, and I want to end 
on a positive note. In the first week of August, I had the privilege to 
be at the Oval Office for a bill signing on the student loan 
legislation, which cut the interest rates on the Stafford Loan program 
from 6.8 percent to 3.8 percent.
  Again, as a member of the Education Committee, this is an issue I've 
been working on for a number of years. It was a hard-fought compromise 
to get that measure to the President's desk in August. We'll save 
thousands of dollars for middle class families and for students who are 
going to college.
  But the fact is that we were standing there behind President Obama 
with the Republican chairman of the Education Committee to my left; the 
Independent Senator from Maine, Angus King, to my right; and other 
Democrats and Republicans who were in the room.
  The fact of the matter is that event showed that, when we do our duty 
in this institution, when people actually recognize that we're not here 
as part of a debate club, we're not here to read ``Green Eggs and 
Ham,'' like the circus that's going on over in the Senate right now; 
but that we're here to do our work and to pass measures to protect 
America's middle class.
  Let's get the jobs of this country growing again. Let's pass a 
budget. Let's protect America's full faith and credit in the next 
couple of weeks or so, and then this economy is poised to grow, and 
we're going to help those people who were lined up yesterday in Groton, 
Connecticut.

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