[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13110-13111]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                PRESIDENT OBAMA'S SPEECH ON JOB CREATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Florida (Mr. Southerland) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SOUTHERLAND. Mr. Speaker, when the President steps into this 
Chamber tonight, he will be addressing an American public that has 
grown weary of unfulfilled promises and empty, prepackaged rhetoric. He 
will be speaking to a restless Nation that grows louder than ever in 
its demand for strong, visionary leadership from its government 
leaders. They want solutions.
  Not one job was added during the entire month of August. I will 
remind all of us that it requires 150,000 new jobs each and every month 
for this country's economy just to break even. For 31 straight months, 
the unemployment rate has been above 8 percent, the lowest percentage 
of Americans holding a job in 28 years, over half of my lifetime.
  Two hundred nineteen newly planned regulations are on tap for the 
American people if not stopped, costing over $100 million each. The 
average small business with fewer than 20 employees faces yearly 
regulatory costs of over $10,000.

                              {time}  1040

  Total yearly regulatory costs equal $1.75 trillion, according to the 
Small Business Administration. And according to the EPA Numeric 
Nutrient Criteria Standards, these standards would cost the State of 
Florida, my home state, over 14,000 agriculture jobs alone. And a GDP, 
I might say, that grew this year at just 0.4 percent in the first 
quarter.
  The American small business people, Mr. President, deserve real 
results. They will expect that tonight. They will expect that from this 
entire body from this point forward.
  American small business people are real people, people like Jay 
Trumbull. Jay is a personal friend I've known for a long time. He lives 
in my own congressional district. Jay is an independent dealer for 
Culligan Water, a company with offices in Panama City, Tallahassee, and 
Fort Walton Beach. He has been in business for over 30 years delivering 
water purification systems and installing water softeners and drilling 
wells throughout north and northwest Florida.

[[Page 13111]]

  Jay told me that he's never seen conditions as bad as during the past 
3 years of this administration. Over the last 3 years, Jay estimates 
that his personal business has dropped over 25 percent. Jay says that 
continued economic uncertainty has made it very difficult, almost 
impossible for him to expand his work force and to purchase new work 
vehicles.
  He has said that he receives 25 to 30 job inquiries each and every 
week, people seeking employment, but he says he's stuck in a ``holding 
pattern'' due to this administration's failed economic policies.
  We've all heard similar stories. With 25 million Americans who are 
unemployed or underemployed, we can all count family, friends, and 
neighbors among those who are struggling to find work.
  The American people will be listening very closely tonight to this 
address. They will be hoping, they will be praying that this President 
acknowledges we need to chart a new course. Government doesn't create 
jobs, but it certainly, certainly can destroy them.
  We need tonight to reduce regulatory burdens on our small businesses. 
Small businesses make up 85 percent of this Nation's economy. We need 
to streamline our Tax Code to spur investment and create jobs.
  We need to help the American manufacturers be more competitive. We 
need to expand access to safe, affordable American-made energy. And of 
course, we all know we should, by now, that we must pay down our 
crushing burden of our debt. Mortgaging our children's future is 
immoral. It is unacceptable.
  That is the agenda that the American people want to hear about 
tonight, Mr. President. And until we do our jobs here in Washington, 
the American people will continue to find it harder and harder, if not 
impossible, to do theirs.

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