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Thursday, October 3, 2002
In This Edition:
Republicans' Failure to Address Economic Concerns
Democrats Win "Important Improvements" on Iraq Resolution
Republicans Turn Blind Eye Toward Energy Price Gouging
;)
Today, 18 months after Republicans' offered big and bold predictions about their economic plan, the nation�s economy and all the economic indicators have headed South. The stock market has lost $4.5 trillion since President Bush took office. Over 2 million people have lost their jobs since President Bush took office and the economic plan was passed. Income for American families in middle-income brackets has declined 2.2 percent since the Republicans took office.
Republicans have been extended an opportunity by Democrats to sit down and write a new economic plan in a bipartisan way that would create long-term economic growth and opportunity for all Americans. But to date they refuse to reconsider any aspect of a plan that was passed long before Sept. 11th, 2001. In fact, what they�re doing today is simply to keep on passing bills to make their failed economic plan permanent.
It is time to wake up and address the most important problems that we face. Let�s come together on a new budget for America, a new economic plan for America, and let�s stop talking about meaningless, nonsense resolutions or about something that might or might not happen ten years from now. The American people are living the consequences of today's economy. Without dealing with the job losses, market instability, pension losses and slow growth today, prospects 10 years from now will be more of the same. They should not and cannot wait for what might or might not happen ten years from now. Let�s deal with the American people�s important problems today.
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to read more.
House Democrats: Economic Security for All Americans
Leader Gephardt's website also unveiled a new 30-second informational Flash movie on House Democrats� fight to protect the Economic Security of all Americans.
Click here
to watch it (requires Flash Player).
The most important issue the President and Congress can ever address is that of committing American men and women to an armed conflict that puts their lives on the line to protect their country. The first responsibility of our government is to protect the security of our nation and our citizens. I have worked to draft a resolution on Iraq that reflects the views of a large bipartisan segment of Congress that focuses the President's authority on Iraq and the threat it poses because of its weapons of mass destruction, and that we will exhaust diplomatic efforts, such as the ongoing negotiations at the UN to before using force, and that we ensure that we do not undercut our ability to effectively wage the ongoing war on terrorism . Over the past several days, working with House Democrats and the Bush administration in intensive negotiations, I have been able to secure a number of important improvements to an overly broad resolution that President Bush first proposed, that refl!
ec!
t these views.
We�re about to begin a great debate in the United States Congress. Part of the majesty of our democratic achievement of a democratic government is that on issues of war and peace, life and death, we have entrusted those decisions not just to the President but to the Congress as a co-equal branch of this government. We now take up that solemn obligation, and I believe when the debate is finished we will have discharged that responsibility in the highest tradition of this country and our great people.
happen.
A year after the electricity crisis in the Western United States, and billions of dollars in price gouging and fraud, it�s clear that the Republican energy policy has been exposed for what it is: a Big Oil Protection Plan. State and federal investigators have uncovered a pile of evidence that a cartel of big energy companies manipulated the market, tripling electric bills from Seattle to San Diego, destroying small businesses, and even endangering lives.
Yet Republicans have not held a single hearing this year to investigate this scandal. They haven't passed a single law to stop this from ever happening again. They have turned a blind eye toward yet another corporate scandal with the hope that the American people will not see it.
We need an energy bill that acknowledges the reality of global warming, protects pristine wilderness areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and benefits the vast majority of the American people as opposed to the big energy interests that contribute to Republican campaigns.
Take a look at what's been going on
in the news from Capitol Hill.
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