[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 16, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H937-H938]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CONTINUING RESOLUTION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
Mr. HOYER. If our country continues on a course of fiscal
irresponsibility and continues to pile debt on our children, we will
all feel the consequences, no matter our party. It is vital that our
two parties work together, Mr. Speaker, to put our fiscal house in
order. So when I tell the House how disappointed I am in the proposal
that is on the floor on spending for the rest of the fiscal year, I'm
coming from a perspective of real worry about our debt, a defining
challenge that must be seriously met. Sadly, that's not the seriousness
we see in the Republicans' spending bills for the rest of this fiscal
year.
[[Page H938]]
Republicans began the new Congress by passing a rules package that
paves the way to add nearly $5 trillion to the deficit. Why do I say
that? Because the Republican rules provide for $4.7 trillion, to be
exact, in additional spending that is not paid for over the next 10
years, while at the same time suggesting reductions in spending, which
I think we need to effect. I may disagree with the specifics, but we
need to effect reductions in spending. However, if you project $1
trillion in reduced spending and $5 trillion in additional unpaid-for
expenditure, it doesn't take much of a mathematician to get you to $4
trillion of additional deficits. This is in the context of the $5
trillion they've authorized themselves to borrow from our children and
in the context of the Republican record of fiscal irresponsibility in
the past where, as I pointed out, every Republican administration with
which I've served has run over a trillion dollars of deficit--$1.4
trillion for Mr. Reagan, about $1.1 trillion for the first President
Bush, and $3.6 trillion or $3.7 trillion for the second President
Bush--as contrasted with a $62.9 billion surplus under the Clinton
administration.
Time and again, Republicans have used the rhetoric of spending cuts
as a cover for massive borrowing, for record surplus to turn into
record deficits--a $5.6 trillion projected surplus in 2001 turned into
about a $5 trillion projected deficit in the following 8 years under
President Bush--and for budgets that year after year did far more
fiscal damage than they promised. This time, unfortunately, is no
different.
But let's look at the actual cuts proposed in this spending bill.
They're shortsighted and indiscriminate. Even as they fail to change
our long-term fiscal picture for the better, these cuts recklessly
damage programs essential to America's competitive edge. I agree that
reducing spending is and must be a part of the fiscal solution, but
let's reduce spending wisely instead of doing it in such a way that
costs America jobs.
When we talk about cutting investments in education, in innovation,
and in infrastructure, we are talking about cutting tomorrow's jobs,
because those are exactly the investments that will build the
technologies and industries of the future and help American workers
stay competitive in a global economy. The Association of General
Contractors said that just yesterday in USA Today.
The spending bill on the floor today would make it harder for
deserving students to afford college, meaning a less educated, less
competitive workforce. Every businessperson that I've talked to says
that's not the way to go.
{time} 1010
It would cut 20,000 researchers supported by the National Science
Foundation and $2.5 billion in cancer and other disease research at the
National Institutes of Health, meaning an America in danger of losing
its place as the world's innovation leader. If we do that, we will not
be the kind of country Americans want to be.
It would lead to the loss of 25,000 construction jobs and leave our
air traffic control system stuck in the last century, meaning an
America with an infrastructure falling further and further behind our
competitors.
We need spending discipline. Everyone in America knows that, and
everyone in this House knows that--but not at the cost of our future
and our jobs. I suggest to you that the rules adopted in this House not
only did not effect discipline; they ignored and threw out the door
discipline, and said that they could borrow $4.7 trillion and not pay
for it.
I can't sum up the central issue any better than Jack Lew, our
Director of OMB, who said this: ``We must take care to avoid
indiscriminate cuts in areas critical to long-term growth, like
education, innovation, and infrastructure, cuts that would stifle the
economy just as it begins to recover.'' Now, who was making a similar
statement like that? Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO. Who
was he doing it with? Mr. Tom Donohue, the president of the United
States Chamber of Commerce. ``That, in turn, would deprive us of one of
the most powerful drivers of deficit reduction, a growing economy,''
concluded Jack Lew.
The President's bipartisan fiscal commission agrees. It found that
indiscriminate cuts to investments in growth would ``interfere with the
ongoing economic recovery.'' Both commissions concluded that short-term
substantial cuts in research, education, and innovation would be
harmful to bringing this economy back to where we want it to be.
Therefore, I urge my Republicans friends: Listen to the economic and
business leaders who understand the value of public investment, not as
a replacement for the private sector, but in partnership with the
private sector. That's the partnership that Democrats are striving for
with our Make It in America agenda. ``Make it in America,'' of course,
means two things:
Number one, you're going to make it. You're going to succeed. You're
going to have the opportunity to get opportunities. Of course, ``make
it in America'' also means that we are going to make ``it'' in America.
We are going to manufacture and grow it in America and sell it here and
around the world. The President wants to double our exports over the
next 5 years. We can do that; we should do that, and Americans believe
that, if we do that, we will remain the great economic engine that they
believe our country needs to be.
We have a set of bills that helps create an environment for American
companies to create jobs here and to manufacture more goods here in
America so that more middle class families will be able to make it in
America. Let's cut needless spending but preserve our investments in
growth, and let's work together to build the bipartisan support that is
essential to the hard choices our long-term fiscal problems demand.
I tell my friends on the other side of the aisle, when you look at
your rules package and when you contemplate the fact that you have
provided for an additional $4.7 trillion of spending without paying for
it and at the same time you project a $100 billion cut per year over 10
years, $1 trillion, it is quite obvious that there is a $4 trillion
hole that you have created.
Reforming the Tax Code to grow our economy and reduce the deficit is
absolutely essential, in my view, eliminating wasteful defense spending
that doesn't keep us safer, and keeping our entitlement programs
solvent for generations to come.
Those are the challenges that both Republicans and Democrats need to
face together: to cooperate, to make common cause, to make sure that
our children and grandchildren inherit a fiscally sound Nation and not
a Nation deeply mired in debt, not a Nation that has $4.7 trillion in
expenditures without paying for them, as the Republican rules suggest.
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