Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011
Floor Speech
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Mr. DICKS. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who is the ranking member on the Labor-HHS subcommittee.
Ms. DeLAURO. If the majority party really wanted to do something about the deficit, they could look to other parts of the budget for significant cuts in savings instead of coming back over and over again with ever-deeper cuts to the programs that make investments in education, in health care, in job training and in scientific research.
Democrats are committed to reducing the deficit. We believe you ought to start by ending the tax subsidies and special interest waste. Let's look at it:
Forty billion dollars in oil subsidies, $8 billion in farm subsidies, $7.4 billion that could be saved by shutting down the practice of treaty shopping, $3 billion a year that could be saved if we allowed cheaper generic drugs in the market.
This across-the-board amendment cut is an example of the majority's reckless rush to slash without regard to the impact on the economy, the businesses that create jobs, or middle class working people who are doing their best for their families and educating their kids for the future.
The majority is hitting families and children and the elderly, and they are not laying a glove on the special interest tax subsidies.
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Ms. DeLAURO. I thank the gentleman and rise to support his amendment.
We should have a quantifiable way of finding out the impact of this continuing resolution on job creation. What else could be more important than that?
There was an examination of the jobs that came out of the economic recovery program. If this continuing resolution would be enacted into law, will the unemployment rate decrease? Will wages go up for middle class families? Will this continuing resolution help to turn the economy around?
I would think that the majority would welcome the opportunity to verify their claim that the continuing resolution would create jobs. Let's prove us wrong. We believe that it will destroy jobs. Prove us wrong--unless you feel that if jobs are lost, so be it.
So why not have the Bureau of Labor Statistics work on these critical issues? And I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, what are you afraid of?
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