Continuing Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the ranking member, Ms. Slaughter of New York, for granting me this time to say, at first, I really didn't believe it when someone suggested to me that the Republican Party would really like to defeat President Obama by raising the unemployment rate. I thought, that's too cynical to really believe.

But in this particular proposal tonight, what we see is a proposal by the Republican Party to take money from the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program to help America compete in the auto industry with state-managed economies like China's and Japan's, and take it away from recovering auto firms and unemployed auto workers to give to disaster victims around this country.

It's a no-win game. We're hurting the American people. We take from one sector that is suffering for another sector that is suffering? In the greatest automotive manufacturing country in the world, we don't want to put more people back to work because we want to defeat the President next year?

I'm starting to believe those that suggested this cynical ploy. Why should we hurt the automotive industry that is just beginning to hire back and starting to lift this economy in the industrial Midwest and through hiring at parts suppliers coast to coast?

Vote ``no'' on this cynical ploy to set disaster victims against unemployed auto workers in the automotive industry of this country, which has a right to compete. If you want to offset $1.5 billion in costs of disaster assistance, take it from the bonuses Wall Street titans keep pocketing. For them, it's only pocket change.

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