[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1585-1586]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             CREATING JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Butterfield) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, for recognizing me 
and giving me this time to speak on a very important subject.
  I want to associate myself with the comments of my friend from 
Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth) who spoke just a minute ago. He is absolutely 
correct, there is no more important discussion that we can have on this 
House floor than the subject of jobs, jobs, and jobs.
  I was delighted yesterday to see the action of the United States 
Senate. The Senate passed, by a majority of 62 Senators voting, to 
invoke cloture and to begin discussing and debating the long-awaited 
jobs bill. I am very pleased that the Senate is taking this matter very 
seriously. We are working to stimulate job growth in this country. And 
we must ensure that the bill puts people back to work. That is what it 
is all about, putting people back to work. Our bill also assists the 
unemployed and struggling who are trying to make ends meet with their 
family. So the vote of the Senate yesterday

[[Page 1586]]

was quite encouraging, and I want to commend our colleagues in the 
other body for doing so.
  Mr. Speaker, one of the advantages that we had in being snowed out of 
Washington for the last 2\1/2\ weeks was that we had an opportunity to 
go back to our districts and to visit the various counties and to talk 
with people who are suffering from job loss. And it is profound. In 
December, the House passed a strong jobs bill that included provisions 
that extended unemployment insurance benefits. That is very important. 
We also voted to extend COBRA health benefits.
  We must work in a bipartisan manner, Mr. Speaker, to make sure that 
this critical safety net stays in place. We can do it, Mr. Speaker. We 
can do it if we put our hands to the plow, work together as Democrats 
and Republicans. We can do it. The American people are expecting us to 
do it.
  Mr. Speaker, as you know, I represent North Carolina, the eastern 
part of our State, 23 counties. Nineteen of the 23 counties that I 
represent are suffering unemployment rates above 10 percent, including 
Edgecombe County, which has the State's second highest unemployment 
rate, at 16.7 percent. That is one out of eight citizens who are 
unemployed. North Carolina is suffering its highest rate of 
unemployment, Mr. Speaker, in 34 years.
  Thousands of North Carolinians are facing the prospect of losing 
their unemployment benefits over the next 60 days. Across our great 
country, about 2.7 million jobless people will lose their benefits by 
the end of April unless we act. We must act.
  People are facing similar dim prospects with COBRA. North Carolina's 
already record high number of people without health insurance is 
expected to continue to surge when the subsidies for the Federal 
Government's COBRA coverage expires, putting yet another strain on our 
health care system.
  Mr. Speaker, thank you for this time. I urge swift and strong action 
on a jobs bill that puts people back to work and helps those people who 
are most in need. Not only do we need tax cuts for small businesses. We 
say that all the time. Yes, we need tax cuts for small businesses. But 
we also need jobs for the chronically unemployed, and we need it now.

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