[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 4832]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   GOP AGENDA OF MISGUIDED PRIORITIES

  (Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, my Republican colleagues made a ``pledge to 
America'' to develop a plan to ``create jobs, end economic uncertainty, 
and make America more competitive.''
  Yet, to date, Republicans have not produced a single job-creating 
measure. In fact, they have done just the opposite. First-time jobless 
claims increased by 5,000 last week, and the total number of people 
receiving benefits fell to its lowest level in 3 years. The February 
job report showed gains of 192,000 jobs and a drop in the unemployment 
rate to 8.9 percent.
  Still ignoring the facts that the experts have said, the needs of 
their constituents, and basic logic, Republicans continue to embrace a 
plan that would hamper our economic progress, depress our growth and 
development. This misguided job-killing spending plan is estimated to 
eliminate 800,000 jobs and reduce economic growth by 2 percent.
  This is irresponsible, unacceptable, and I urge my Republican 
colleagues to abandon this job-killing spending campaign and adopt a 
reasonable agenda to support economic development and job growth.

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