Pelosi, Democratic Leaders Remarks at Enrollment Ceremony for HIRE Act

WASHINGTON, March 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman James Oberstar held an enrollment ceremony to sign the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act and send it to President Obama for his signature. This morning, the Senate passed the House version of the HIRE Act, a bipartisan bill that will create and save hundreds of thousands of jobs and strengthen the economy. Below is a transcript of their remarks:

Speaker Pelosi. Good afternoon. I've very delighted to be here with our Distinguished Majority Leader. We had hoped also that the Chair of the Infrastructure and Transportation Committee, Mr. Oberstar, would be with us, but he has a very important bill on the floor right now and depending on that debate, he may or may not be joining us. But he certainly has been on the lead in investments in infrastructure, which is what this bill is about.

We're gathered here again today to talk about putting Americans to work, not just back to work, but many more jobs to bring other people into the workforce with HIRE - the Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act.

With $15 billion of investments, it unleashes tens of billions of dollars more in infrastructure - to build the infrastructure for the future in terms of how it unleashes funds from the highway trust fund. And it provides support for small businesses with credits and accelerated write-offs. It will produce - this bill here will produce 300,000 jobs. Now, this is part of a series of jobs bills that we have - this one - Mr. Hoyer will talk some more about other legislation that is coming up.

In recent months, we've seen the results of the Recovery Act. And I think it's really important to note, again, a couple of facts. In the last quarter of 2008, the last full quarter of the Bush Administration, the GDP was a minus 6.4 - GDP growth-minus 6.4 percent. In that same equivalent quarter, in 2009, the GDP grew by 5.9 percent. It shrank by 6.4 the year before. It grew by 5.9 the following year. A swing of over 12 percent. Thanks to the leadership of Barack Obama and the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The fastest growth in a very long time.

Jobs - in January of '09, the last month of the Bush Administration, the job loss was 779,000 jobs. The equivalent this year, January 2010, 20,000 jobs. We don't want to lose any jobs. We want to be on the plus side. But the fact is the difference is over three quarters of a million jobs. Thank you, President Obama, and the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Today, as I left my office, I noticed the stock market was over 10,700 points. When we were debating this bill, it was in the mid-6,500s. So, an increase of over 4,000 points in the stock market.

We know that the bill has created - the legislation has created or saved over 2 million jobs and that continues as the investments continue to be made. What we're doing here today is a step in more job creation, building on that success, and I'm very proud to be enrolling it here today.

I had hoped that perhaps Mr. Oberstar will join us, but I do want to say how grateful we all are to his - for his tremendous leadership, his persistence in pushing investments in our infrastructure in our country. It's important - infrastructure and transportation. Important to commerce. It's important to quality of life. The air we breathe and the water we drink. So, it is an essential bill. Our infrastructure deficit is a great one. This takes some strong steps in addressing it.

Now, I want to yield to the distinguished Majority Leader. This bill was something we had to go back and forth with because it did not - it wasn't as fiscally sound as we needed to be in the House. Well, the Leader will speak to those points. But I thank him for making this day possible with his leadership in bringing the parties together in the House and the Senate.

Mr. Hoyer.

Majority Leader Hoyer. Well, thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I'm pleased to join the Speaker.

One thing we want to say today is: "We've told Americans we're going to focus on growing the economy and creating jobs." We know that Americans are in pain. Over 8 million jobs have been lost over the last two years. We need to create jobs. The Speaker has pointed out we have reduced the loss of jobs by 96 percent - an extraordinary reduction. That's progress. You've all heard me say success will be when we get in the positive job growth number. It will take us some time. The stock market is up. And we are making real progress economically on GDP.

So that on those three levels we have made real progress. But until Americans are back to work, we are not making enough progress. So today, recognize, notwithstanding, that all of you have been asking me questions about health care, which we think is a very important issue.

Our eye remains focused on job creation and growing our economy. It also remains on the second priority that I indicated to you, whether we have, and that is reaching fiscal balance once again - as we had in the Clinton years. The only President in my lifetime who had a net-surplus in the eight years of presidency was President Bill Clinton. The past Administration inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus, turned it into a very deep debt, and an economy that was failing. We've had to borrow money to stabilize and to start growing as the figures point out - the economy again. But, this bill recognizes the fact that, "Yes, we want to do that. But we want to make sure that we do it in a fiscally responsible way." So, we sent it back to the Senate, with the paid-for provisions in there, and they have passed it.

So, the Speaker will sign this bill today. We'll send it to the President as a continuing commitment to the American people that we are focused on growing the economy and until the economy is back and growing and providing jobs and growing jobs, we will not rest any day of this coming year.

Thank you very much.

[Signing Bill]

Speaker Pelosi. President Obama does this left handed. [Laughter.]

With that, we sign HIRE. We are going to hire more people - very exciting. Thank you.

Leader Hoyer. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for your leadership. Great.

Speaker Pelosi. Perhaps you have some questions about this legislation?

Leader Hoyer. You too are focused on building jobs and growing the economy, I hope.

Q: Now that the jobs bill you just signed is done, do you…

Leader Hoyer. We have more to do on jobs. The Speaker indicated, I thought you were going to ask a question. We have a jobs bill that is being marked up in the Ways and Means Committee. The Senate has passed a bill that they have sent over to us, so we have at least two more job creating, job, economy growing pieces of legislation we will be considering in the next few weeks.

Q: Which day will bring the health care bill to the floor? Do you know yet whether you will push it to Sunday or Monday? Or you still might have it done by Saturday?

Leader Hoyer. We are going to do it as soon as it is ready to be brought to the floor, as soon as we have the CBO numbers that we can have confidence in and I would say that certainly Saturday and Sunday are possibilities.

Q: Can you give us the latest estimate of when you might release the CBO numbers and of course the legislative language that you will release along with it? Any update?

Leader Hoyer. We are going to release those numbers when we have them. Well, this is a complicated bill, and we have pledged to the American people that we will pay for this bill. And we have made it very clear to all of our Members and to CBO that we want to make sure that this bill is paid for, does not increase the deficit, and in fact decreases the deficit over time.

As I quoted to you a Wall Street Journal article, while the CBO originally scored $132 billion decrease in the deficit, a Wall Street Journal article believes it will reduce the deficit by $600 billion dollars in the first 10 years and more than that in the second 10 years.

But the answer to your question is, we are waiting to get a real confidence level on the jobs. Before we go further, let me yield to the individual who was so responsible in the Recovery Act. As a matter of fact, let me yield to the Speaker, because I know she wants to say something about him.

Speaker Pelosi. Well, I join Steny in acknowledging the tremendous leadership of Mr. Oberstar. Any time we have legislation to create jobs, his imprint is on it. His leadership is clear. In this legislation, we want more, and we will have more. But what we have would not have been possible without his tremendous leadership. He is a man born for this job. He understands job creation. He understands the needs of our country in terms of its greatness, in terms of infrastructure and what that means to the commerce, to the health, to the well-being, quality of life of the American people. And he is a great legislator. He knows how to translate a need into a law, into better public policy for the American people. So we are very honored to take any opportunity to acknowledge the leadership of Chairman Jim Oberstar. Thank you, Jim.

Would you like to say something, Jim?

Chairman Oberstar. Thank you. I'm sorry, I was delayed getting here. We're passing the unfinished business of the HIRE Act - correcting the misappropriation of the House language and the trust fund formula by the other body, which correction has been agreed to by Majority Leader Reid in a letter to Speaker Pelosi. And I had to be there to validate that and insert the statement into the record and correct the formulas for all the states and re-establish the funding formulas for the future as the baseline for our authorization bill.

But I'll just underscore what the Speaker has said about the Recovery Act. We can account - this is my monthly report card. We can account for 1,091,005 jobs created by the three principal programs - highway transit and state revolving loan fund, under the jurisdiction of our committee. All of the $34.2 billion have been obligated, and 13,000 projects approved. We have, of the - 329,000 direct on-project jobs, $3 million paid in federal taxes by people working on job sites, $279 million in unemployment compensation checks avoided, 24,000 lane miles of highway improved - that's equal to half of the interstate highway program, and 1,200 bridges restored, replaced, or rebuilt new.

That is a concise and specific and precise achievement that all of us can be proud of in the stimulus program.

Speaker Pelosi. And this legislation today continues that.

Chairman Oberstar. Yes.

Q: Mr. Oberstar, there is a report that said you will vote "yes" on the health care bill. Is that accurate?

Chairman Oberstar. This is for jobs. I'll talk about health care another time.

Speaker Pelosi. Thank you.

SOURCE Office of the Speaker of the House