[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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