Date: 2006-02-08
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

And -it is not like there are not Members on both sides of the aisle ivho have not. lived under this before. I am not sure if it is. the majority. but there is a significant plurality of Members in this Chamber who served in their State legislatures. And you talk. to any Governor. talk to. anyone currently serving in the State legislature. that is what they live everyday. Really.jt is like you get to Congress. and you become a drunkensailor. You are suddenly freed from the restraints of fiscal conservatism. You do not have to think about operating in the black hnymore. You can spend to your hearts content and not think about fiscal restraint and not think about how you are going to pay for it. It is essentially like. oh. I get to Congress. and I get this humongous Visa or Mastercard. and I get to do whatever I want with it. Well. that is not how it works for the American people on an everyday basis. If it does. they end up ultimately declaring bankruptcy. Do we want to continue to travel down that path in the United States .of America and be in a position where we cannot pay our debt one day? I mean. I am raising little kids. That is literally the future that we are planning for. right now for the next generation. Again. I want to draw some comparisons to words and deeds here. if you do .not mind. The President again. as I said. talked about how our economy was healthy and vigorous. I do not know how you have a debt like this. bigger than any combined in the last 224 years. just in the last 4 years. and say that the economy is healthy and vigorous. -but I guess we all use a different dictionary from time to time of health and vigor. The President said that in the State of the Union. and let us just detail some facts related to the economy. President Bush. despite what he says about the 4.6 million new jobs that were created. still has the worst record on jobs since President Herbert Hoover. He added 108.000 jobs in December. He has lost a total of 2.8 million manufacturing jobs. 2.8 million manufacturing jobs. At this point in the last recovery. the economy had created about 5 million more jobs than we have seen in this supposed recovery. and millions of Americans who want to wQrk still do not have jobs. Now. last week I was sitting at home. I was on my couch watching CNN. and I saw the head of the Ford Motor Company announce plans to cut up to 30.000 jobs and close 14 plants. I was dumbfounded. I had just heard from the. President not 10 days before that the state of our economy is healthy and vigorous. and he created 4.6 million jobs. and now Ford Motor Company is cutting 30.000. General Motors just announced plans to eliminate their set of 30.000 jobs. Adelphia. now in bankruptcy. is asking workers to accept A 55 percent pay cut. Verizon is phasing out its defined benefits and pension plans for about 50.000 management employees. We are not talking about management employees who are on the high end of the pay scale. management employees like middle management. regular people. people who are living close to if not paycheck to paycheck every single day. And IBM recently announced it would freeze pension benefits for its 117.000 U.S. workers. In 2005. U.S. employers announced more than a million job cuts. which marks the first time since 2001 that annual job cuts increased. Now. like I said. I understand that leaders often use the words that paint the rosiest picture or paint the picture that they would like to see or -that they would like people to perceive. I think it is pretty clear that the jobs record. the health of our economy. the vigor of our economy. the debt we arp saddling our children with. the deficit that continues to balloon compared to the surplus that we had just 32 short years ago. there is no resemblance to the reality that President Bush has painted and the reality that our constituents are living every single day. None. It is wrong.