[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6261]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          JOBS AND THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, just recently the economic report of the 
President, which was sent to Congress under the President's signature, 
predicted that the economy would create some 2.6 million jobs this 
year. Yet, Mr. Speaker, the President has yet to create a single net 
job since his inauguration, not one.
  Meanwhile, we have lost almost 9 million people in this country that 
are hopelessly out of work. Many of these intelligent, educated, and 
able-bodied Americans have given up on looking for work because our 
national unemployment situation is so grim. As a result, they are 
unable to provide the basic necessities for their families. Instead, 
they are watching President Bush on television traveling the country, 
touting his economic record that again has yet to create a single net 
job.
  Mr. Speaker, we have got to get the employment situation in this 
Nation back on track. The phrase ``jobless recovery'' is of no 
consolation to the nearly 9 million Americans who are unemployed and 
the millions who are underemployed in our country.
  Mr. Speaker, zero represents the amount of money nearly 9 million 
people are bringing home bi-weekly instead of a paycheck. Zero 
represents a degree to which the tax cuts being promoted by my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle have worked to achieve their 
goal. Zero also represents the amount of compassion American voters 
should give this administration in November since these numbers will 
not change without new leadership in Washington.
  Today, Congress had an opportunity to enact legislation that is 
guaranteed to create jobs. The Committee on Transportation and 
Infrastructure Democrats proposed $37.8 billion of Federal highway/
transit infrastructure investment. These funds would have created 
nearly 1.8 million jobs and about $235 billion of economic activity. 
However, our recommendations were disregarded because the President 
threatened to veto the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to make it crystal clear to the American people 
that the President of the United States has threatened to veto a bill 
that has proven to create jobs; yet he is in favor of unlimited amounts 
of tax cuts that have debatable job creation effects. Mr. Speaker, it 
has been found that transportation construction contractors hire 
employees within 3 weeks of obtaining a project contract. Yet nearly 3 
years after passage of the President's first package of tax cuts, the 
economy has yet to create a single net job. Not one.
  Mr. Speaker, the unemployment numbers from March will be released 
tomorrow. For the good of the American people, I sincerely hope that 
these numbers reflect a positive change in the Nation's unemployment 
situation. But it will not be because of anything this administration 
has done. It will be in spite of the obstacles to job creation that 
this administration continues to advocate.
  Lastly, I continue to hear the President and the Republicans blame 
all of their economic woes on September 11, corporate scandals, and the 
drumbeat of the Iraq War. Let me remind my friends that every President 
and every administration has had to overcome challenges. How about 
World War II, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the Watergate 
scandal, the Iran hostage situation, the Cold War, and the first 
Persian Gulf War?
  I could continue on, but my point is that every President has faced 
these types of challenges and still managed to create jobs, except one, 
since the Great Depression, and that is George W. Bush and this 
Republican House and Senate.
  Mr. Speaker, we either need to change policies or change the 
leadership of this country. In the words of Tracy Chapman, ``Either we 
change or we live and die this way.'' I say we must, we must change.

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