[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 30 (Friday, February 13, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H1592-H1593]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1500
                 THE STIMULUS BILL--A LOST OPPORTUNITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. There has been a lot of talk in Washington, D.C. over 
the last few years about the bridge to nowhere in the last highway 
bill, an anomaly from a lot of good investment that was in that bill.
  But what we have with the passage of this bill today are a lot of tax 
cuts to nowhere. I never met a tax cut that could build a bridge or 
that could rebuild 160,000 bridges in our National Highway System that 
need rebuilding. They are crumbling or falling or they are functionally 
obsolete. I never met a tax cut that could even fill in a pothole. I 
never met a tax cut that could build a school.
  I went to elementary school in a new post-World War II school. It is 
still there today, serving future generations of kids. That was money 
borrowed and money well spent. Money borrowed for tax cuts, ephemeral 
tax cuts--very small tax cuts--for the average family are not going to 
rebuild our economy, put us on the path to prosperity and put people 
back to work.
  Three Republican Senators insisted on a lot more tax cuts. They 
hijacked the bill because of the arcane, obsolete and, in fact, 
discretionary rules of the Senate. It did not need to be that way. 
Let's just look at a couple of things they cut.
  We had an amendment here on the floor of the House to add $3 billion 
back to transit. That would have provided for thousands of jobs. Twelve 
thousand buses are obsolete. There are backlogs of orders for buses 
sitting on the shelf. There are options that are not funded. That would 
have put American workers to work in building the

[[Page H1593]]

buses, and it would have put American workers to work by driving the 
buses, taking Americans to work and to school. $3 billion was cut from 
there to make room for tax cuts. There was money cut from highways to 
go to tax cuts. All of the money to build schools was cut from the bill 
for tax cuts. The list goes on and on and on. We could have done so 
much more to rebuild our infrastructure with this bill. We could have 
done so much more to help our kids get a good education and get safe 
and new schools and facilities, but they went out the door to tax cuts.
  Now, there was one tax cut, actually, that would have helped a 
business in my district that employs 1,300 people. That tax cut was 
taken out of the bill. The CEO called me yesterday, saying, ``We'll 
probably be closing our doors because we're not going to be getting 
that tax relief.''
  Then there is money to help the States with the deficit and with the 
school budgets--that's great--except it cannot be spent until July. My 
schools are in crisis now. They're talking about lopping a month off of 
the school year, and we are being told we cannot spend that money now, 
that you'll need it for next year. Well, we're in the last 3 months of 
a 9-month year. That means our cuts are going to be twice as big as 
they would need to be on an annual basis. We need to have access to 
that money now, but we won't have access to that money now under this 
bill.
  This bill ultimately is a lost opportunity, and I fear that, when it 
comes time to do further investments, the borrowing well may have run 
dry. Who is going to lend us this $800 billion to spend on these sorts 
of things like tax cuts?
  They might lend us money to build a bridge because they know it makes 
us more productive, and it puts people to work, and it provides 
returns. They might lend us money for other substantial things. They 
might lend us money for education, but they're going to lend us money 
so we can cut taxes.
  If they'll lend it to us, we're probably going to borrow it from 
China or from Japan. We'll think there are not going to be any 
consequences, and we'll think that maybe we can go back to the well 
again later when we want to meet real needs and when we want to make 
real investments. I fear that the well will have run dry. So I voted 
``no'' today, and I am proud of that vote.

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