U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, Chairman of the House Republican Conference, made the following statement today on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to discuss the continued failure of the Democrats’ so-called stimulus plan:

As most Americans know, in February of this year this Democrat Congress and this Administration passed a $1 trillion stimulus bill with the promise that we would see immediate relief. Even at the website for the Recovery Act there is the statement, ‘The Recovery Act is providing immediate fiscal relief.’ But the facts tell a different story.
 
The Administration said that if the stimulus bill was passed that unemployment wouldn't pass 8 percent. It's 9.5 percent today. Almost two million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus was passed and remarkably this Administration continues to argue that the stimulus is working.
 
The President of the United States actually said the stimulus had ‘done its job,’ and in fact told CNN over the weekend that the stimulus was ‘working exactly as we anticipated.’ His own Treasury Secretary said that the country was going through a ‘necessary and healthy adjustment.’
 
A ‘healthy adjustment?’  A stimulus bill that had ‘done its job?’ The American people know better. What we need in this Congress is not another big old give-away stimulus bill. What we need is fiscal discipline for Washington, D.C. and tax relief for working families, small businesses and family farms. That's a Republican prescription for a real recovery and we ought to get on with it.

Note: To view this speech, click here.