[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15108]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      AMERICANS' PRIORITY IS JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Madam Speaker, ask Americans their 
priority, and they'll tell you it's jobs. There are 14 million 
Americans out of work. There are 9.3 million more Americans working 
part-time because they can't find full-time employment. There are 
millions more Americans whose incomes have stagnated because of the 
persistent unemployment which has dragged down economic growth. In 
fact, median household income has fallen 9.8 percent since the 
recession first began in 2007. More troubling, although the overall 
economy has been growing again, household incomes continue to fall. 
Since December 2007, American households have lost more than $5,400 per 
average household.
  There are several factors leading to this decline. One of the most 
significant is that in order to find work, many millions of unemployed 
Americans are forced to accept lower pay. With millions of Americans 
still desperately searching for jobs, businesses can afford to offer 
lower wages. With millions of American families slipping below the 
poverty line and wondering where the next mortgage payment or meal will 
come from, prospective workers can't afford not to take the pay cut.
  It's clear we must pass the American Jobs Act. This is a plan that 
reduces business taxes to encourage private sector hiring and increases 
infrastructure investment to repair and rebuild America, creating jobs. 
And it cuts taxes for every working American. While the lingering 
effects of the worst recession in 80 years continue to drive down 
Americans' income, we can increase their take-home pay with the 
Americans Jobs Act, putting more money back in the pockets of average 
American families. Increasing American paychecks and creating jobs--
that ought to be our priority.
  But Republicans in Congress have a different priority: cutting. Last 
Congress, Republicans' big marketing blitz wasn't about creating jobs, 
it was about cutting. Last Congress, Democrats passed business tax cuts 
to spur job creation, approving infrastructure improvements to create 
construction jobs and backstopping faltering State and local education 
funding to save teaching jobs. And we saw results. The Great Recession 
resulted in 8 million jobs lost. But thanks to our efforts, like the 
Recovery Act and the HIRE Act, we created 2.6 million jobs. A good 
start, but not enough.
  But what were the Republicans doing last year? They were trumpeting 
their YouCut program. Perhaps if Democrats had named our efforts 
YouHire program, Republicans might have taken more notice.
  Unfortunately, through fighting and threatening, delaying and 
denigrating, Republicans have made clear that cutting remains their top 
priority. Their first bill introduced this year, H.R. 1, wasn't about 
jobs; it was all about cuts. In fact, economists predicted it would 
cost 200,000 jobs.
  Surely their second bill was about jobs? No. H.R. 2 tried to repeal 
important health reforms so that people with preexisting conditions 
wouldn't be protected; so that parents wouldn't be able to keep their 
kids on insurance, especially during tough times, through the age of 
26; so that the doughnut hole for our seniors could be closed and they 
could get a 50 percent brand name drug discount this year.
  But if Republican voodoo really worked, why isn't our economy better? 
Why are American incomes still dropping? This entire year in place of 
actual job creation legislation, Republicans have focused instead on 
ever-increasing cuts. And since the beginning of the year, the economy 
has faltered. Their single-minded focus on attacking private sector 
employees has paid off; we've lost 535,000 public jobs all across 
America. It's time to invest in America again. Let's support the 
American jobs bill.

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