[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1470-1471]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        GET DOWN TO THE BUSINESS OF PUTTING PEOPLE BACK TO WORK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CICILLINE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a question for my 
friends on the other side of the aisle: When will we get down to the 
business of putting people back to work?
  My constituents in the First District of Rhode Island sent me to here 
to do

[[Page 1471]]

everything I can to get our economy back on track, pave the way for 
sustained recovery, and get Rhode Islanders back to work. And that's 
why my colleagues and I in the Democratic minority are focused on job 
creation, economic development and debt reduction.
  However, the first actions by the new Republican majority during 
their first month have not been consistent with these principles.
  Unfortunately, my constituents, like Rhonda Taylor, for example, from 
North Providence, Rhode Island, whom I met with yesterday, do not have 
months and months to wait for my Republican colleagues to get their 
priorities straight. She's already been waiting and waiting. And that's 
because Rhonda lost her job in the information technology field due to 
outsourcing almost 3 years ago. And her unemployment compensation 
benefits were exhausted nearly a year ago.
  Rhonda is a mother of three. She's liquidated her savings and sold 
all of her possessions, and now she's afraid she'll become homeless.
  Rhonda proves why there is no time to spare. We need to focus on 
policies that create jobs today. The struggles of our unemployed 
friends and neighbors are heartbreaking and, unfortunately, all too 
common. People like Rhonda have no time to wait. The partisan games 
have to end.
  Unfortunately, Rhonda's story is not unique. I've been hearing 
similar messages for the past year from men and women all across Rhode 
Island. But instead of working on policies that will help real 
Americans like Rhonda, my friends on the other side of the aisle are 
playing politics with the Federal budget and the national debt, a 
budget that even Republican economists say could lead to double-digit 
unemployment and reverse the economic growth that is starting to take 
hold.
  Blind budget cuts my colleagues in the majority are pursuing won't 
help people like Rhonda but would, rather, do more to cut jobs than 
save or create them. What my friends fail to recognize is that partisan 
political games will not solve our Nation's unemployment crisis which 
plagues nearly 14 million of our friends and neighbors.
  The fact of the matter is the challenges facing us as a Nation are 
not Democratic challenges or Republican challenges. They are our 
challenges, and they require American solutions.

                              {time}  1020

  The work is demanding, yes, and it will test the will of both parties 
to make difficult choices. But as a Congress, we need to both 
responsibly reduce the deficit, cut spending, but also make the smart 
investments that will create jobs now and guarantee the prosperity of 
our great Nation.
  Our Nation must make the investments in education, innovation, 
infrastructure, science and research that are critical to rebuilding 
our economy and putting people back to work because we cannot compete 
in the short term if we cannot innovate. And we cannot innovate in the 
long term if we fail to provide our children with access to a high-
quality education. We cannot move goods and services throughout the 
economy if our infrastructure is crumbling. And America cannot make 
things again if we do not support the research, the entrepreneurs, the 
small businesses and manufacturers that transform ideas into new 
products.
  People like Rhonda back home in Rhode Island, and hardworking people 
all across this Nation, have suffered for too long. We must have the 
courage to set the right priority, cut what doesn't work or isn't 
needed, live within our means, and make the right investments that 
ensure our ability to compete in the global economy today and into the 
future.
  I call on my Republican colleagues to join me so we can focus on 
putting Americans back to work by developing commonsense solutions and 
focusing on jobs.

                          ____________________