[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 21051]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               REPUBLICAN RHETORIC DOES NOT MATCH REALITY

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, well, the Republican rhetoric about the 
economy does not match the reality on this issue either. New figures 
show U.S. companies announced layoffs of more than 100,000 people last 
month.
  If that is not bad enough, the pace of new job postings plunged in 
September to a mere 16,000. This is the President's economic equivalent 
of Mission Accomplished. Over the third quarter, job layoffs topped a 
quarter of a million workers. That is 20 percent worse than the last 
quarter, and they call it progress. The September figure for layoffs 
was the largest number in 8 months, and they call it progress.
  They cannot create a job, so they create a sound bite. They do the 
same thing in Iraq every day. Things are getting better, they explain, 
while the rest of America looks at the nightly news and wonders what in 
the world these people are talking about. Every night, they deny what 
is before their eyes.
  They have not done the job. The record is clear, and so is the 
outcome. In 27 days, the American people will give the President and 
the Vice President bus fare out of town.

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