Chairman Miller Remarks on Economic Stimulus Package

Friday, September 26, 2008

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, delivered the following statement today as the House considered an economic stimulus package to bolster the nation’s economy.

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 Madam Speaker, because our country urgently needs an economic stimulus package that will create new jobs, provide vital relief for struggling families, and get our economy going again, I rise in strong support of this bill, H.R. 7110,

Our economy needs two things, and we need them right now. 

First, we must take steps to help restore confidence in the credit markets and the financial sector as a whole, because every American is affected by this worsening financial crisis and every American will be hurt if it gets worse. 

Remember, we’re not just talking about propping up the stock market, even though the decline in the stock market clearly hurts tens of millions of Americans with pension funds, retirement accounts, and college funds across the country.  What we are attempting to do is revive the credit markets so that the economy can grow again, so that Americans can borrow at reasonable rates to make payroll at a small business, invest in new equipment, borrow for college, take out a mortgage, start a new business, or buy a new car. 

Credit is what fuels our economy and creates jobs and good incomes.  The crisis that is allegedly just a Wall Street problem is a problem on every street in every small town and big city in our country. Whether people like to admit it or not, Wall Street and Main Street are joined at the hip.  And we all share an interest in stepping up to the plate to help restore confidence in the credit markets in a manner that offers the greatest possible protections to the taxpayer and consumers and homeowners.  That is what I am trying to help accomplish and I urge my colleagues to join together to do the same.

So that’s one thing we must do to help the economy now.

Secondly, to help the ailing economy we also must invest directly in new infrastructure – roads, bridges, mass transit, clean water, new schools – to get Americans working again. 

More than 600,000 American workers have lost their jobs so far this year. The number of unemployed Americans is now at its highest level since 1992.

Our nation has now faced 8 straight months of consecutive job losses. 1.6 million workers are looking for jobs. And last week, jobless claims rose to a seven-year high.

The economic stimulus package before us today will help to get our economy back on the road to recovery. It will yield immediate results for all Americans.

Our bill will help to get more Americans back to work by investing in infrastructure projects that can quickly generate good-paying jobs.

Our bill provides a long-overdue investment of $3 billion to repair crumbling schools across this country -- making classrooms safer, healthier, more modern and energy efficient places for children to learn -- while injecting demand into the construction industry.

Our bill provides much-needed support for millions of Americans who are out of work by extending unemployment benefits to help them cover their housing payments, grocery bill, and energy costs.

And our bill invests $500 million in job training programs to help these workers find and prepare for good jobs in the fast changing economy.

Look, we all know that the disastrous wild-west, go-go economic policies of the eight years of the Bush Administration have made our economy less stable, less fair for working Americans, and less resilient in the face of crisis.

We have an obligation to go in a new direction on the economy and we have an opportunity to start to get it back on track right now.

Our stimulus package represents the right kind of economic policy – literally building a stronger country, investing in our children, investing in workers, and coming to the aid of struggling families.

This is an important step toward strengthening the nation’s middle class and strengthening the overall economy and I urge all my colleagues to support it.

Thank you.

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