(Remarks as Prepared)

Mr. Speaker, I intend to vote against this bill, but I recognize that it does contain one worthy section: ensuring workers continue to get promised regular and extended unemployment benefits and States are able to keep paying those benefits. 

Let’s be clear why this provision is necessary: the Democrats’ economic policy has resulted in record job loss, record deficits and none of the job creation they promised.  But American workers should not pay for the mistakes and failures of the Democrats’ so-called stimulus bill. 

Just yesterday we reached yet another record in the number of American workers collecting unemployment checks instead of paychecks, and the nation’s unemployment rate is headed quickly to 10 percent and is already above 15 percent in my home state of Michigan. 

Mr. Speaker, Americans can surely see the record unemployment, but they cannot see where the jobs are.

The President and Administration officials recently suggested their stimulus plan is working as intended and helping the economy recover. It’s not. The bill before us proves that. 

Since President Obama was sworn in, the Nation’s public debt and unemployment combined have risen by a shocking 40 percent.  And that’s before literally trillions of dollars in additional spending under the Democrats’ stimulus, energy, and health plans, and whatever higher unemployment lies ahead. 

This bill reflects the continued failure of Democrat economic policy to save or create the millions of jobs they promised would flow quickly from their stimulus bill.

Mr. Speaker, Republicans offered a plan that would have provided twice the jobs at half the cost.  It was disappointing when it was rejected earlier this year, and the bill before us, in which Congress is bailing out the Federal unemployment bailout fund for the States, is yet another reminder of the failure of the bill Democrats wrote behind closed doors and forced through the Congress.

Mr. Speaker, we must help those who need help.  But it would be nice if the help Congress provided was a job, not another unemployment check.

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