[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 10, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3107-H3108]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      BETTER CHOICES FOR AMERICANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, it was interesting to listen to my good 
friend from North Carolina with her interpretation.
  You know, it's interesting. My Republican friends simply had no 
solution other than to gut the infrastructure investments that are so 
critical, the important health care initiatives, and replace them with 
more tax cuts, most of which would not meet the needs of people who 
need help the most.
  I will tell you, I invite people to look at what we did. Indeed, the 
$6 billion that is flowing to my State of Oregon

[[Page H3108]]

over the next 2 years has made a critical difference to support State 
services, to be able to invest in cleaning up the environment, to save 
and create jobs. I've posted a guide on my Web site to each and every 
one of those provisions--62 pages in all--where people can track for 
themselves. There are not, for example, tax increases for most 
Americans. My friend from North Carolina is just flat wrong. If she 
would research the bill that we approved here on the floor, she would 
find that in fact 95 percent of the people get tax cuts. Nobody is 
having tax increases over the next couple of years, even the very 
wealthy. And it's what, in fact, America has asked for.
  I would suggest that it's time for us to step back from some of this 
goofy back and forth because I think there are a wide range of areas 
that we can agree that reform needs to be made.
  I like what I heard from President Obama on the campaign trail and 
what I heard from the rostrum here when the President addressed his 
first joint session of Congress. There are a number of areas of health, 
energy, tax, and agriculture that actually can bring people together. 
Now is not the time for commissions and study groups or for mindless 
political bickering; now is the time to actually do what we know we can 
accomplish.
  There are multiple areas where it isn't so much picking low-hanging 
fruit, it's actually picking that fruit up off the ground. We need to 
articulate a vision of how we're going to accomplish that. For example, 
in the area of agriculture, it's not just the problem in the past that 
rich sugar farmers have had more clout than poor hungry children. There 
are ways in reforming agriculture that we can put more money in the 
pocket of more ranchers and farmers and less into the pockets of the 
wealthy few who don't need it.
  We can implement reforms to help change the bureaucracy with things 
like crop insurance reform, that independent observers have identified 
for years, but Congress hasn't had the will to follow through on fixing 
it. We can pay farmers and ranchers to protect the environment, not to 
damage it. We can concentrate on strengthening American agriculture and 
producing more healthy food rather than a few commodities, frankly, 
that the world has enough of.
  In the area of health, the research is in. There are a number of 
communities across the country that are low cost, high performing where 
people live longer and get sick less often. In fact, we see some of the 
areas of the country where we are spending the most government money in 
Medicare actually is not helping people. Rather, many of those areas 
actually have worse results because people get unnecessary tests and 
procedures, not concentrating on things that will make them healthy. We 
can reward the low-cost, high-performing areas while we send signals to 
those that are spending lots of money and not performing very well. 
Let's send the message there's a bipartisan consensus that we're going 
to fix that.
  In the area of transportation, there is a vast coalition that has 
emerged around the country that wants to help the Federal Government 
get more money and streamline the Federal partnership. They are willing 
to work with us so that there are more choices, higher standards, and 
sustainable revenue. The Chamber of Commerce, organized labor, 
environmentalists, transit advocate bicyclists, all combine in an 
approach to make America's transportation partnership with State and 
local governments better and stronger.
  We don't need to rely on the same old patterns. We can, in this 
Congress, take action that unite people all across the spectrum all 
across the country. We've got a President who can use the bully pulpit. 
I strongly urge that we work with him for a new vision, more value, 
better choices for Americans, and to do it now.

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