[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11009]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                                  JOBS

  (Mr. RIGELL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RIGELL. Mr. Speaker, our friends and neighbors are hurting. Last 
week the Department of Labor told us that the unemployment rate has 
climbed to 9.2 percent. That's unacceptable. This number reflects, in 
part, the policies of an administration that is embracing bureaucracy 
and red tape more than entrepreneurship and common sense. Let me give 
you a local example.
  A respected developer in my district, he has got a job-creating 
project that is ready to go and has the full support of the City of 
Virginia Beach, which has already invested millions of dollars in 
infrastructure improvements for the project. And unlike so many of the 
projects that have been talked about, this really is shovel ready. HUD 
just needs to give it a green light. But all we're seeing is red 
because HUD is locked into a bureaucratic culture evidenced by a rigid 
first-in, first-out policy. It's resulted in an expensive 6-month 
delay. It's putting the entire project in jeopardy.
  America can't afford even one more month of these kind of jobs 
numbers. So to the leadership of HUD, I am asking you, work overtime. 
Do what you must to turn these applications around in a timely manner 
and you'll unleash the greatest job-creating engine the world's ever 
known--the American entrepreneur.

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