Why is Senator Boxer so angry?

By Will Femia

  -  

Thu Jun 9, 2011 6:44 PM EDT

Yesterday, viewer Mark Ybarra sent a note that Barbara Boxer had lit up the Senate floor:

@maddow Senator Boxer Kills GOP on Senate Floor Today..LMAO Best Speech on Senate Floor This Year!

I believe the clip below is what Mark is referring to.

So what is the senator so riled up about? On Tuesday she made a strong pitch for the reauthorization of the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to invest federal money in infrastructure and other projects. She's got some video of that on her site or else you can read the bullet points of her argument here on the Committee on Environment and Public Works site. The idea is simple enough: for the last 50 years, the EDA has made investments, particularly in struggling areas, that have resulted not just in public jobs but in private sector investment that has meant new private sector jobs. Boxer's refrain throughout her presentation on the Senate floor is that historically, each dollar of EDA investment has attracted nearly seven dollars in private sector investment.

So the Democrats think they have a pretty straight forward jobs bill (with maybe some negotiating to be done on the total price tag) but the Republican response was to bury it with irrelevant amendments. Most offensive to Boxer, apparently, was Senator Rand Paul'ssmirking addition of a 700-page debt limit amendment.

Senator Paul spoke just before Boxer and that's him you hear interrupting Senator Boxer for a question in the clip below.

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