Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky. I want to thank the ranking member for this time.
Mr. Speaker, throughout our country's storied history, we've witnessed some truly extraordinary efforts from the floor of this hallowed Chamber to address our country's most dire needs. We've stood united, setting geographic and party labels aside, to pass legislation that pushed our country forward.
In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, in the shadow of 9/11, in the wake of numerous natural disasters, this body has traditionally responded by pulling together to produce results for the American people.
But today, Mr. Speaker, sadly, is not one of those extraordinary moments.
Thousands of pages of text, given to us at midnight last night, the Speaker even preventing it from being read to us by the House Clerk, 90 minutes of debate only--some Members will not even be allowed to speak a word for or against this monstrosity--and $790 billion of spending, the largest bill ever to pass through this body. [Page: H1556]
Hardly any Member, Republican or Democrat, was allowed to help work and write up this bill. This bill was written by the Speaker of the House, with absolutely no collaboration with the Republican side of the aisle and, frankly, little with even Democrats. The principles of democracy are being compromised here today, now.
The American people deserve better. The Members of this Chamber deserve better. And our Founding Fathers expected better.
At best, all you're going to do here today, Mr. Speaker, is ram through this Congress an ill-conceived, wrong-headed, misdirected spending spree. This bill is not targeted toward creating jobs like we wanted. It's just spending a borrowed trillion dollars that our children, grandkids, even great-grandkids are going to have to pay.
When all is said and done with today, and the balloons are put away and the champagne toasts are over, we will leave a whopping and record-breaking $12.1 trillion debt for our children to try to mop up. Even worse, leading experts tell us more every day, the results of this bill will not jump-start our economy or create real high-wage jobs.
