Floor Speeches

Mr. Speaker, here we are 43 weeks into the current Congress since the Republicans took control of the House, and yet we have failed to pass a single bill to create jobs. Fourteen million Americans without jobs, many millions more are underemployed, worried about where their next paycheck is coming from. And yet the majority has continued to block and ignore a number of job-creating proposals advanced by Democrats, including the American Jobs Act. I renew my call for Speaker Boehner to bring the American Jobs Act to the House floor and allow the House to work its will to create jobs for the American people.

The majority party will respond that there are a number of bills, but just by calling a bill a jobs bill doesn't make it one, such as bills that would increase childhood asthma and make people of all ages more ill by preventing our EPA from enforcing its clean water standards. The Dirty Water Act, again, instead of creating jobs, the bill undermines the Clean Water Act. It's not a zero sum game. And by damaging our environment and making people sick, we're not creating jobs.

I call upon the House of Representatives to pass jobs bills now.