Weekly Republican Address - Oct. 3, 2009

Hello – I’m Congresswoman Candice Miller and I am proud to represent Michigan’s Tenth District.

Yesterday, the federal government reported that hundreds of thousands of Americans were laid off in the month of September.

All told, our economy has lost roughly 3 million private-sector jobs since President Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trillion-dollar “stimulus” plan became law.

At the time, the people of Michigan were told this so-called “stimulus” would create jobs in our state immediately, more than 100,000 of them. Well, now local economists say we are on track to lose 300,000 jobs this year alone.

And while the American people were promised that the “stimulus” would prevent unemployment from rising above 8 percent, it’s now teetering on the verge of 10 percent. And in Michigan, our unemployment rate is the nation’s highest at 15.2 percent.

It didn’t have to be this way.

Republicans offered better ideas to help working families and small businesses across our country weather this storm.

In fact, according to a formula created by one of President Obama’s senior economic advisors, our economic recovery plan would have created twice the jobs at half the cost.

Our plan is based on the belief that fast-acting tax relief is the most effective way to put our economy back on track. It focuses on helping small businesses create jobs, not spending more taxpayer dollars to expand government.

Now, at a time when both parties should be squarely focused on getting Americans back to work, Democrats are actually redoubling their efforts to implement job-killing policies that will stretch family budgets even further and pile more debt on our children and grandchildren.

Making its way through Congress is a “cap and trade” national energy tax that would increase electricity bills, raise gasoline prices, and ship more American jobs overseas.

According to the Obama Administration’s own estimates, this national energy tax would cost American households an extra $1,700 per year. There could not be a worse time to heap additional pain on families struggling to make ends meet.

Of course, a costly government takeover of health care remains the centerpiece of Democrats’ domestic agenda.

And when I say ‘costly,’ I mean for you and your families. Washington Democrats intend to fund their government-run health care plan with cuts to Medicare benefits for seniors and massive new taxes on small business owners.

Republicans have offered fiscally-responsible solutions that address these serious challenges head-on while protecting American jobs instead of putting them at risk.

You know, Washington Democrats’ job-killing agenda makes me think they’re living on a different planet from the families living in America’s suffering heartland.

In Macomb County, Michigan, you can feel the anxiety. Our seniors have had no choice but to put off long-planned retirements and continue working while our children – our future – are moving away in search of a job, any job.

This isn’t the change the American people were promised.

Republicans hope that the President and Speaker Pelosi will put aside their job-killing agenda and help promote policies to get Americans working again.

I’m Congresswoman Candice Miller. Thanks for listening.

Speech from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AnW1eU2b-8.