[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11153]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           DEBT CEILING/JOBS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Nunnelee) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. NUNNELEE. Mr. Speaker, last week we learned that the economy 
added a meager 18,000 jobs and the unemployment rate went up to 9.2 
percent, far from the 6.7 percent that President Obama claimed it would 
be today if the stimulus bill had been signed into law. Far too many 
Americans are looking for jobs. Yet the President insists that tax 
increases are the way to fix Washington's spending problem. Tax hikes 
that will destroy jobs and destroy the confidence that our job creators 
need to hire new employees. To keep American jobs here we don't need to 
raise taxes. We do need to get our fiscal house in order.
  Twenty-two million Americans search daily for full-time work, the 
worst sustained unemployment streak since the Great Depression. To 
these Americans, there is no end in sight. For them, unemployment's not 
a rate, it's a reality. Our job crisis has everything to do with our 
spending crisis and our debt crisis.
  If we hit the August 2 deadline, the United States Government will 
face what many Americans have felt: Too much month left at the end of 
our money. We simply won't have enough money to pay our bills. 
Americans have had to make that decision time and time again. At the 
end of the month, they have to decide what to pay first--the mortgage, 
the electric bill, the grocery bill, or the car payment.
  Now, I will be very disappointed if, in making those decisions, the 
administration chooses to play politics. We need to make sure we pay 
Social Security, interest on the debt, Medicare, and our troops that 
are standing in harm's way. The American people want real solutions, 
and the House of Representatives has committed to a long-term plan. We 
voted for a budget that would make Washington start living within its 
means. Even the President's own chief of staff has said that in 5 years 
Medicare is going broke.
  However, it's been 800 days since our friends in the Senate have 
passed a budget. And they have nine House-passed jobs bills sitting in 
their hands, but they refuse to act on any of them.
  A recent poll shows that only 17 percent of mothers believe that 
their children will have a better life in the future. At every townhall 
meeting I ask participants whether they think their grandchildren will 
live a better quality of life than they live. The response is slim.
  If Congress is going to be asked to raise the debt ceiling, we must 
have a long-term plan to fix Washington's spending problem. House 
Republicans have made our demands clear. We will not raise the debt 
ceiling without spending cuts larger than an increase in the debt 
ceiling. We will not raise the debt ceiling without structural reforms 
that restrain further spending and guarantee that we don't get into 
this mess again. And I am not interested in a temporary band-aid. We 
have already voted ``no'' on raising our debt limit without significant 
cuts and reforms.

                              {time}  1030

  We will not support a plan that raises taxes on hardworking 
Americans. We didn't get into this problem because taxes are too low. 
We are in this situation because of runaway spending and the failed 
economic policies of this administration.
  We need to move forward and solve this crisis in a responsible way.

                          ____________________