[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2340]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      AMERICA'S ECONOMY IS BOOMING

  (Mrs. BLACKBURN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Madam Speaker, our economy is booming. I know that 
may come as a surprise to some of our colleagues across the aisle, and 
certainly to some of the mainstream media. But our unemployment rate is 
now at 4.7 percent, and that is lower than the average unemployment 
rate in the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s. Yes, lower than each of 
those decades.
  And where are the headlines that would praise the smart tax plan that 
helped to get us there? In January, America created 193,000 new jobs. 
That is 2 million new jobs in just over the past year.
  4.7 million new jobs in the past 30 months. Republicans are not going 
to play I-told-you-so, but it is pretty obvious that the tax reductions 
passed in 2003 helped Americans dig out of a recession and get back to 
work. We will keep on pushing that sort of fair, flatter, simpler tax 
code that Main Street America needs to keep creating great jobs.

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