Job Protection and Recession Prevention Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. It is an interesting question: Which lane are we going to choose?

The study that has been offered by our friends on the other side of the aisle is bogus, and I invite people to actually look at it and look at the critiques that have been offered up.

But we've had a real-life experiment because these tax rates that are being talked about were exactly what we had in the Clinton years, at which time some of our good friends on the other side of the aisle predicted calamity, job loss, and that the economy would crash. What, in fact, happened is that we created 22 million jobs.

What has happened is that, when they had a chance to experiment with their vision in the Bush years, where they put in place these tax reductions, if they would have worked, what would have happened? Did employment even match what happened in the Clinton years? No. In fact, it was less than 5 percent of what happened in the 8 years of Bill Clinton.

In fact, the Obama administration--after the first few months when it was in office and could be credited with responsibility for the economy--has produced more private sector jobs than the entire Bush administration in 8 years. The job loss that's gone negative has been slashing in the public sector, primarily teachers and firefighters and police officers at the State and local levels.

Mr. Speaker, the strategy here is to continue punting. My Republican friends are punting on the farm bill. My Republican friends are punting on SGR. They are now proposing a budget solution that gets us past the election because they can't face up to their own Tea Party extremists, and they're split.

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Mr. BLUMENAUER. That's what is at stake here.

I would suggest that we take what we ought to be able to agree on, the 98 percent of this tax reduction, agree on that, not punt, give some real certainty, and then have an honest debate about their proposal to increase taxes on the middle class at the expense of being able to provide for the richest of Americans. Let's have that debate. Let's not hold people hostage in the short term.

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