Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. LABRADOR. Mr. Chairman, as I listened to the other side speak about their budget, it takes me back to growing up in Puerto Rico as a young man. And I'm very privileged to represent the people of Idaho right now, but I grew up in a very poor neighborhood. I grew up in a very poor environment in Puerto Rico.

I remember my mother taking me to the wealthier neighborhoods. And I remember her taking me to different places to the nicer stores, the nicer places in Puerto Rico and telling me that I had a choice, that I could work hard, I could play by the rules, I could do all the things I needed to do, and one day I could live in one of those homes, one day I could actually have those opportunities.

But if my mother would have had the same mentality that the other side has, I would have never been able to amount to anything in my life because what they believe is that the only way you can actually amount to something is if you take from the ones who have, if you're a ``have-not.''

My mother never believed in that. She never said some day she will own a beautiful home, you will own a beautiful car, you will own a beautiful house if you take away from the rich. She always said that was up to you to become somebody in your life. And that's the mentality that the other side has.

I have this chart here to show what really happened under the Democrats and the Republicans. If you see this, when the Democrats took control of Congress, we were at just under 5 percent unemployment. As soon as they took over Congress, and Barack Obama was elected, the unemployment rate went higher. And as soon as the Republicans were elected, the unemployment rate started going down. That's the path that we can have between the two parties.

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