[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 108 (Wednesday, July 18, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H4920-H4926]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SEQUESTRATION TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2012
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and
pass the bill (H.R. 5872) to require the President to provide a report
detailing the sequester required by the Budget Control Act of 2011 on
January 2, 2013, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 5872
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Sequestration Transparency
Act of 2012''.
SEC. 2. SEQUESTER PREVIEW.
(a) In General.--Not later than 30 days after the date of
enactment of this Act, the President shall submit to Congress
a detailed report on the sequestration required to be ordered
by paragraphs (7)(A) and (8) of section 251A of the Balanced
Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (2 U.S.C.
901a) for fiscal year 2013 on January 2, 2013.
(b) Contents of Report.--The report required by subsection
(a) shall include--
(1) for discretionary appropriations--
(A) an estimate for each category of the sequestration
percentages and amounts necessary to achieve the required
reduction; and
(B)(i) for accounts that are funded pursuant to an enacted
regular appropriation bill for fiscal year 2013, an
identification of each account to be sequestered and
estimates of the level of sequestrable budgetary resources
and resulting reductions at the program, project, and
activity level based upon the enacted level of
appropriations; and
(ii) for accounts that have not been funded pursuant to an
enacted regular appropriation bill for fiscal year 2013, an
identification of each account to be sequestered and
estimates pursuant to a continuing resolution at a rate of
operations as provided in the applicable appropriation Act
for fiscal year 2012 of the level of sequestrable budgetary
resources and resulting reductions at the program, project,
and activity level;
(2) for direct spending--
(A) an estimate for the defense and nondefense functions
based on current law of the sequestration percentages and
amount necessary to achieve the required reduction; and
(B) an identification of the reductions required for each
nonexempt direct spending account at the program, project,
and activity level;
(3) an identification of all exempt discretionary accounts
and of all exempt direct spending accounts; and
(4) any other data and explanations that enhance public
understanding of the sequester and actions to be taken under
it.
(c) Agency Assistance.--(1) Upon the request of the
Director of the Office of Management and Budget (in assisting
the President in the preparation of the report under
subsection (a)), the head of each agency, after consultation
with the chairs and ranking members of the Committees on
Appropriations of the House of Representatives and the
Senate, shall promptly provide to the Director information at
the program, project, and activity level necessary for the
Director to prepare the report under subsection (a).
(2) As used in this subsection, the term ``agency'' means
any executive agency as defined in section 105 of title 5,
United States Code.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin.
{time} 1240
General Leave
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that
all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and
extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.R. 5872,
currently under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Wisconsin?
There was no objection.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
Madam Speaker, here's basically why we are here today with the
Sequester Transparency Act. As a background, under the current law,
because the supercommittee was unable to agree on a deficit-reduction
package, the Office of Management and Budget will implement a $110
billion across-the-board cut--which we have referred to as a sequester
or a sequestration--on January 2, 2013. This comes half on defense,
half on domestic discretionary--in other words, a $55 billion cut,
which is a 10 percent cut to defense immediately, and then an 8 percent
cut to domestic discretionary--but we do not know the actual reductions
that will result from this sequester.
[[Page H4921]]
As we debate this bill today, we will probably not be able to avoid
the contentious issues on the sequester, but let's not lose sight of
the fact that the bill before us simply directs the Office of
Management and Budget to tell us how they will implement the sequester.
So we're just asking for more transparency and more details. Within 30
days, they should give us the plan on how they will do this.
This bill is essentially about transparency. It's not re-litigating
the budget fight; it's about making sure that we have as much
information as we can to make the right decisions. It's about carrying
out a constitutional duty to ensure that laws are faithfully executed
and that we fully understand the Budget Control Act sequester, how it's
going to be implemented.
It has strong bipartisan support. The House Budget Committee voted
30-0 to report this bill here to the floor, and the Senate has passed
similar legislation on a bipartisan basis.
With that, Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
Madam Speaker, I support this legislation. As the chairman of the
Budget Committee said, it passed unanimously out of the Budget
Committee.
I believe that more information is better than less. I also believe,
and from the comments I've heard from colleagues on both sides of the
aisle, we also agree that we have enough information to know right now
today that an across-the-board, meat-ax approach to reducing the
deficit--a sequester--is a reckless way to deal with our budget.
We've heard a lot about the impact of the cuts on defense. Secretary
Panetta has talked about those. We've heard a lot less about the impact
of the cuts on other important investments, such as those in biomedical
research. A coalition recently reported that the cuts to the National
Institutes of Health alone would cut 33,000 jobs. That means fewer
people investigating cures and treatments to diseases that plague every
American family. That's just one small example on the nondefense side.
But, Madam Speaker, I believe, given what we know, we should be
focused today and every day on avoiding the sequester. In the Budget
Committee proceedings, the Democrats offered an alternative approach.
I've got it right here in my hand. It called for a balanced approach to
replacing the sequester, the kind of balanced approach that every
bipartisan commission that has looked at our deficit challenge has
recommended. It included a combination of cuts, such as direct payments
in excessive farm subsidies. It also included cuts to things like big
oil companies, eliminating taxpayer subsidies. That plan would totally
replace the sequester for 1 year; and it wouldn't have to have the
deficit, the impact that we've heard about.
So great to get more information, may have a unanimous vote here
today in the House; but let's take a balanced approach to reducing our
deficits, and let's take a balanced approach to replacing the
sequester.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, at this time I'd like to yield
5 minutes to the author of this bill, the chairman of the House
Republican Conference, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).
Mr. HENSARLING. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Madam Speaker, we know our Nation faces very serious threats
overseas, but we also have a very serious domestic threat as well, and
that is our national debt, a debt that has increased more in the last 3
years on a nominal basis than in the previous 200. Thus, the Budget
Control Act. The Budget Control Act, because, as the chairman of the
House Budget Committee pointed out, the supercommittee--on which I
served, as did the ranking member--did not prove so super, we are
staring into the face of a sequester.
So I would like to not only compliment the chairman of the House
Budget Committee for his leadership in bringing an alternative to this
very, I believe, destructive sequester that still maintains the deficit
reduction levels of the Budget Control Act, but I also want to
compliment the Democrat ranking member for also offering an alternative
plan. It is one I disagree with, one that, by my reckoning, includes 73
percent tax increases. But he should be applauded, and House Democrats
should be applauded at least for recognizing the draconian defense cuts
that could do real damage to our national security. As Secretary
Panetta has said, the sequester ``will do real damage to our security,
our troops and their families, and our military's ability to protect
our Nation.''
But although I compliment the ranking member, I find it more
challenging to compliment the Democrat Senate Majority Leader. Senator
Reid has said: I'm not going to back off sequestration. That's what he
has said. Thus, we are looking at a 10 percent real cut in our national
defense.
Madam Speaker, I also picked up Monday's edition of The Washington
Post--not exactly known as a bastion of conservative thought--and I
read the headline: ``Democrats Threaten to Go Over Fiscal Cliff if GOP
Fails to Raise Taxes.''
So on the one hand, again, this is a very simple piece of legislation
that I have coauthored with the chairman of the House Budget Committee.
It simply says: Mr. President, since under sequestration you get to
call a lot of the shots--according to the Congressional Budget Office
``the administration's OMB has sole authority to determine whether a
sequestration is required, and if so the proportional allocations of
any necessary cuts''--all this is saying: Mr. President, show us your
hand, show us your plan. Let the American people know what the true
impact is going to be on our national defense, on our economy, on a
number of vital services, because you have the discretion. That's all
this bill does. But I fear, to some extent, it may mask another agenda
on what the debate is really about.
Madam Speaker, I need not tell you we continue to face the weakest,
slowest recovery in the post-war era, and there are some who seem to
have an ideological passion for raising taxes on the American people.
An earlier speaker got up in an earlier debate and said that the
largest small business group in America, the National Federation of
Independent Business, has just released a new study saying that the
President's tax plan will cost 710,000 jobs--jobs of working families--
and those same working families will see their wages fall by 1.8
percent.
So why would we want to raise taxes on anybody in this economy? Well,
someone pointed out, well, we need to reduce the deficit--and we do.
But, Madam Speaker, if you do the math and give the President the top
increasing tax rates in the top two tax brackets, not only does it
destroy jobs; it's about 2 to 3 percent of his 10-year spending budget.
So it harms jobs, and it doesn't solve the problem. I fear it is
diversion from the failed policies that we have seen from this
administration that has created the worst unemployment crisis since the
Great Depression.
But I would hope that we would at least have a growing consensus that
we shouldn't decimate national defense, and there should at least be
transparency. I urge all of my colleagues to support the Sequestration
Transparency Act.
{time} 1250
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for
his comments about the supercommittee. I think we all wished it had
succeeded. It did not, but it was a privilege to serve with my
colleague from Texas.
Let me just make a quick correction on the math. I think everybody
knows, under the Budget Control Act, which was enacted last September,
we cut $1 trillion from the budget, 100 percent cuts.
The alternative that the Democrats have proposed to the sequester
takes a balanced approach of additional cuts, but also revenue. In
fact, the 1-year proposal that we put forward puts additional cuts in
direct payments, excessive subsidies under the farm bill.
Yes, we also eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the big oil companies.
Former President Bush testified that, when oil's over $50 a barrel, you
don't need taxpayers shelling out dollars to encourage big oil
companies to invest. So we think we should eliminate those subsidies to
help remove the sequester, including the sequester on defense.
Let's make no mistake. The reason we're here is that our Republican
colleagues deliberately chose, as part of
[[Page H4922]]
the sequester, to put defense spending on the chopping block along with
other spending. That was the choice above an offer to deal with revenue
as part of a sequester. And when the choice boiled down to cutting tax
subsidies for oil companies and other special tax breaks or cutting
defense, Republicans chose to put in the sequester cutting defense.
Now, I know we have a hearing today in the Armed Services Committee.
I see the distinguished chairman on the floor today. I have to commend
him because he has said before that if he were faced with that choice
he would take that mixed, more balanced approach. And that ultimately
is what we're going to have to do. That's the approach that's been
taken by every bipartisan commission that's looked at this challenge.
With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania
(Ms. Schwartz), a member of the Budget Committee.
Ms. SCHWARTZ. I appreciate the opportunity to speak for just a couple
of minutes on the legislation before us.
I do support a transparent process that would better ensure that
there's public information on the impact of sequestration which, of
course, is the automatic spending cuts that are scheduled for next
year.
Sequestration, which would trigger those automatic cuts, was put in
place to force Congress to work to find a bipartisan, balanced approach
to deficit reduction. Today's legislation does not move us any closer
to achieving that goal.
Time and again, the Republicans in Congress have rejected a balanced
approach that would include spending cuts and revenue and economic
growth. They reject a balanced approach that would protect our Nation's
short-term economic recovery and create the right environment for long-
term growth.
They reject a balanced approach, as you heard before, that has been
recommended by every bipartisan commission, that would move our country
forward by making tough yet responsible choices on the deficit and
would reflect America's priorities and build America's economic
strength.
The American people deserve to know the impact of across-the-board
cuts resulting from the failure of the Republican majority to find that
common ground and avoid sequester. But they also deserve real
solutions, something the Republican majority has yet to deliver.
Their so-called solution, their budget, the House Republican budget,
takes a partisan, one-sided approach to deficit reduction. It relies
solely on spending cuts and directs the $100 billion cuts next year
from sequestration to come only from one part of the budget: non-
defense discretionary. All of the $100 billion cuts next year would
come from our domestic priorities: health care, education, scientific
research, transportation, law enforcement, to name a few.
Their budget fails to require other even larger parts of the Federal
budget to reduce costs and be more effective. Their budget fails to
protect our fragile economic recovery. It fails on economic growth.
They should work together with Democrats to make a real deficit
reduction-economic growth package for the United States of America.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds
simply to say that when we hear the words ``balanced approach,'' what
that means to taxpayers in this country is, You give us your checkbook
and we'll balance it the way we think it ought to be balanced here in
government. Government first, taxpayers second. That's what the so-
called ``balanced approach'' means. It means keep feeding higher
spending with higher taxes.
The problem is, Madam Speaker, the arithmetic just doesn't add up.
You literally cannot tax your way out of this mess. Spending is the
cause. We need to address our spending. The sooner we do it, the sooner
we can get back on to a path to prosperity.
With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
California (Mr. McKeon), the distinguished chairman of the House Armed
Services Committee, and ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to
yield that 5 minutes as he chooses.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from
California will control the time and is recognized for 5 minutes.
There was no objection.
Mr. McKEON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
thank him and Chairman Ryan for bringing this bill to the floor. It is
greatly needed.
Barring a new agreement between Congress and the White House on
deficit reduction, over $1 trillion in automatic cuts, known as
sequestration, will take effect. Although the House has passed a
measure that would achieve this necessary deficit reduction to avoid
sequestration for a year and give us time to work on it outside of
election-year pressure, the Senate has yet to consider any legislation.
Now, I hear a lot of good ideas from the other side and they talk
about increased revenue. All I'm saying is put it down on paper.
We have a process by which we work. It's outlined in the Constitution
of the United States. One body passes legislation, the other body
passes legislation, a conference committee is formed, and the
differences are resolved. It goes back to the bodies for final passing
and then goes to the President for his signature.
We have taken action in the House. We're waiting for the other body
to take some action.
The President weighed in on this. He submitted a budget. His budget
sought $1.2 trillion in alternate deficit reduction. He followed the
process. That budget was defeated in a bipartisan, bicameral manner.
Now, we need another bill that we can work on.
This impasse and lack of a clear way forward has created a chaotic
and uncertain budget environment for industry and defense planners.
Compounding the issue is a lack of guidance from the administration on
how to implement sequestration.
We just held a hearing in the Armed Services Committee where we had
industry leaders come in to tell us the problems they're having on
getting guidance.
You know, I come from a small business background, nothing like
building planes or ships or boats or the other things that our
warfighters need to carry out their mission.
And I might remind people that we are at war. We do have warfighters
going outside the wire, as we speak, every day, putting their lives on
the line, and they're watching this. They're watching what we're doing.
They're wondering if they're going to have the things that they need to
carry out this mission and to return home safely.
My business, as I said, was a small family business. We were in the
western wear business. We sold boots and hats in a retail way. And we
would go, my brothers and I, family business, would go to the market in
January. We would buy for our needs for the next 6 months. We would buy
shirts, hats, jeans, boots. And then our suppliers would go to their
suppliers and buy the things they need to make those things, and then
they would ship them to us in an orderly manner, and then we would be
able to have the product on the shelves when our customers came in in
February, March, April, May.
These industry leaders are asking for a little guidance. All they
know is the law, as we have it now, kicks in January 2, says that there
will be no thought, no planning, just we take out the budget and cut
every line item by a margin, 8, 12, 20 percent, whatever it is,
realizing we're already a quarter of the way into the year.
One of the leaders gave us this quote in this conference. This is
Sean O'Keefe, president and CEO of EADS North America and chairman of
the National Defense Industrial Association. And I quote:
Most immediately, the administration must communicate today
its sequestration implementation to the public, our Armed
Forces, and to industry.
The current uncertainty has effectively put sequestration
and its consequences in motion. In the absence of any
guidance, industry is already holding back investments,
questioning the fairness of ongoing competitions, doubting
the viability of existing contracts, and starting to trim
capacity.
In the absence of definitive guidance from the DOD, the
OMB, and the Defense Contract Management Agency, we feel
compelled to act in the spirit of this law and, in all
likelihood, will issue WARN notices to those employees
engaged in ongoing Federal contract activities.
{time} 1300
We are going to put thousands of people in jeopardy of their jobs
between
[[Page H4923]]
now and when sequestration should kick in. This is already in motion.
Madam Speaker, I ask that we come together on this issue, that we
solve this issue. I ask the President to put forth some leadership. As
Commander in Chief, he has the obligation to help us solve this
problem. I ask our colleagues to please support this legislation and to
bring transparency.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, I listened carefully to what the
chairman of the Armed Services Committee said, and I didn't find much
that I disagreed with. We agree that we should replace the sequester,
and we agree that it's a mistake to create the kind of uncertainty
that's out there. Obviously, it has an impact, not just in the defense
sector, but also in all of the other areas in which our Federal
Government has activities.
I would just say--and I want to make sure the chairman is on the
floor now and has a chance to respond--that he demonstrated some
leadership on this issue last fall because he was asked this question.
He was asked if he had to put together a plan that included some
revenue. He said, Yes, I understand that we've got to make cuts, but
I'd rather include some revenue than deep cuts to defense. In fact,
what he said was:
We're going to have to stop repeating ideological talking
points and address our budget problems comprehensively
through smarter spending and increased revenue.
When asked to choose between deeper cuts in defense and cutting some
tax breaks, he said we should cut some tax breaks.
That was last fall. That's exactly the kind of balanced approach that
the Democrats put forward in the Budget Committee. The chairman of the
committee asked for a specific plan. We had a vote on it in the Budget
Committee. We wish that our colleagues would have supported it. It
would have prevented the sequester from taking place for another year,
and it would have eliminated all of the uncertainty the chairman of the
Armed Services Committee just talked about.
The reason that we haven't been able to move forward is that our
Republican colleagues continue to insist on supporting these tax breaks
for special interests and tax breaks for folks at the very top and that
they refuse to eliminate those tax breaks for the purpose of reducing
the deficit or for the purpose of eliminating the sequester on defense
and non-defense. That's why we are in the situation we are in right
now. The keys to the lock are in the hands of our Republican
colleagues.
We had the same proposal ready to bring to a vote before the whole
House of Representatives as part of the reconciliation process. The
Rules Committee didn't even allow our proposal to be made in order so
that Members of this body could vote on it up or down. So, yes, let's
get on with the main issue. Let's focus on replacing the sequester.
Let's do it in a balanced way.
I have to say, since the gentleman from Texas earlier referenced the
comments of Senator Reid's, the majority leader, I've looked at the
Senator's comments. The Senator's point was the same one I'm making
here, which is that, if we are going to remove the sequester, we need
to take a balanced approach. We need to include cuts. Again, it's
important to remember we did $1 trillion in cuts--100 percent cuts--as
part of the Budget Control Act, but we also need to include some
revenue by eliminating some of these special interest tax breaks and by
asking folks at the very top of the income ladder to pay a little bit
more for our national defense and for reducing our deficit. That is the
underlying issue here.
I now yield 2 minutes to a member of the Budget Committee, the
gentlelady from Oregon (Ms. Bonamici).
Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you, Congressman Van Hollen, for yielding.
I rise in support of the Sequestration Transparency Act.
We have all heard concerns back home about partisan gridlock in our
Nation's Capitol. Our constituents continue to ask us: Is there any way
to overcome this gridlock to solve the problems facing our country?
They ask if it is getting better, if Congress can actually do
something. Can we get things done?
With the end of the year approaching and with our country's inching
ever closer to the so-called ``fiscal cliff,'' the questions from our
constituents take on a new urgency. They want to know what is going to
happen if the budget sequestration is allowed to go into effect, and
they want to know if Congress can function well enough to avoid the
doomsday scenarios that many economists are predicting if sequestration
does occur. Up until now, we have not been able to offer them much in
the way of positive news, and we've had to tell our constituents that
we're not quite sure what sequestration will mean for our communities.
Now, this bill doesn't solve the problems our constituents will face
if sequestration actually goes into effect--the lost jobs or the damage
to our still struggling economy--but it does give us valuable
information about what might happen. It will allow us, the body that
brought us here in the first place with the passage of the Budget
Control Act, to at least better understand the consequences of our
actions. Importantly, it signals a bipartisan action on the part of
Congress to ask: How bad will this be?
If there is a silver lining to be found, it is that we have come
together on what could have been a contentious piece of legislation,
and I thank the Budget Committee chairman and ranking member for their
leadership.
Now, the fact that we have to pass a bill to get information on
legislation that we have already passed does not speak highly of the
process. The sequester was supposed to motivate us to work together and
pass a budget that lowers costs while maintaining critical services.
It's unfortunate that we have to pass yet another bill to move us
closer to accomplishing what should have been done months ago.
But for the sake of better representing our constituents, let's focus
on the positive: Let's support a bill that gives us the information we
as legislators need in order to make an educated decision.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.
Ms. BONAMICI. I hope today's bipartisan action is an indicator of a
renewed commitment to tackling the sequester, and I hope it sends a
message to our constituents that we can work together to get something
done. That's why I supported this bill in the Budget Committee, and
that's why I am asking my colleagues to join me in voting ``yes'' on
the Sequestration Transparency Act.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a
distinguished member of the House Budget and Armed Services Committees,
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young).
Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, there is broad bipartisan
agreement in this House that the looming defense sequestration cuts are
bad policy for the U.S. military and our national defense.
Our Defense Secretary has testified to me and to other members of the
Armed Services Committee that such cuts would hollow out the military,
and our constituents are rightly concerned about our ability to provide
necessary equipment to troops in the field, troops who are often our
sons, daughters, brothers, or sisters.
The original goal of this legislation that gave us the sequester was
to find deficit reduction in the Federal budget in a careful,
deliberative manner. Despite their best efforts, the small group that
was charged with finding these cuts failed in the end. That's why we
have passed legislation in the full House to replace the defense cuts
with deficit reduction elsewhere, but the Senate has, once again,
failed to act. As for the administration, it has failed to specify how
these cuts will be distributed and what kind of impact they will
inevitably have on our Nation's security.
Military spending decisions should not be made in a vacuum. We
shouldn't merely try to manage down to some predetermined, arbitrary
spending level. Ultimately, strategy should guide these sorts of
decisions. Missions we are asking our men and women in uniform to
perform to keep our country safe should be our measuring stick, and we
should ensure that full funding exists to carry out each of these
missions.
The bottom line is this: It is the responsibility of this
administration to
[[Page H4924]]
inform Congress and the American public of its plans to implement the
sequester and to provide clarification on its scope and severity.
With that, I strongly urge my colleagues to support this blessedly
bipartisan legislation, the Sequestration Transparency Act of 2012.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. I yield 2 minutes to a gentleman who serves on
the Budget Committee and who also, I believe, serves on the
Appropriations Committee, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole).
Mr. COLE. I thank the gentleman for including me on his committee.
H.R. 5872 is a bipartisan bill. As has been mentioned several times,
it did pass out of the Budget Committee unanimously, and that's a very
good thing. I think, honestly, we have a very strong bipartisan
agreement that sequester is a very bad policy, something that really
shouldn't be allowed to happen.
{time} 1310
Obviously, I also sit on the Defense Appropriation Subcommittee. So I
focused on that area. If we don't arrive at agreement before the end of
the year, we'll have $110 billion worth of cuts across the entire
budget, but about a 10 percent cut on top of a half a billion dollars
we've already taken out of defense that will begin that will have
tremendous consequences in my State, potentially 16,000 jobs, $620
million or $630 million to the State economy. We all hope this doesn't
occur, but we all know that the administration does have a
responsibility to plan for it and to inform us of those plans. So far
it has failed to do that.
Mr. Speaker, it's worth noting for the record that we have dealt with
sequestration in this House. We passed a measure to avoid it. It's the
Senate that has failed to act. We may not have acted in a manner in
which our friends on the other side would like, but the responsibility
now is with the United States Senate to at least pass something and put
us in a position to go to conference.
It would be irresponsible to allow sequester to occur, and it would
be responsible for the Senate to actually act. I hope today, by giving
the Senate additional information, by encouraging the administration to
plan for something we hope doesn't happen, that we will actually bring
ourselves a little bit closer to a solution, and we'll come to a
bipartisan compromise by the end of this year.
Mr. Speaker, I urge the passage of this legislation.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I believe they have the right to
close, so let me inquire of the gentleman from Maryland whether or not
they have another speaker.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. There was one other gentleman who said he was on his
way. He's not here yet. If he is not here by the time you finish, we
will close.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. With that understanding, I yield 2 minutes to
the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), a member of the Budget
Committee.
Mr. LANKFORD. At home, people have just a simple request of Congress:
do our job. Just do it. They're tired of worrying about what dumb thing
the Federal Government will do to them and their business and their
family that will cause them even more pain. They just want us to
identify the problem, fix it, and quit messing with the private
business world.
When a private business sees a threat on the horizon, they prepare
for it. If it's good, they ramp up hiring, they add more inventory,
they increase training, they increase sales staff. They get ready for
something good. They take the entrepreneurial risk. If they see a
threat on the horizon that looks bad, they pull back staff, they slow
down internal purchases, they freeze inventory and hiring.
I have two quick observations. One is this: right now the national
threat on the economic horizon is the Federal Government's lack of
imperative to resolve this manufactured crisis. We need to fix it now.
The second is this: we've got to look up and see there is a financial
crisis coming and prepare for it. If we wait until the last minute to
act, it creates incredible uncertainty in our economy and businesses
and families can't prepare for it. When we wait until the last minute
to do something, we have already created economic uncertainty there.
Here's what this bill does: it requires that we actually plan for an
economic crisis that we know is coming January 2, 2013. It pushes us to
do what's essential right now. Federal spending has dramatically
increased. As we approach $16 trillion in national debt in our fourth
straight year of trillion-dollar deficit spending, we should not guess
or try to make up a financial plan at the last minute. Some have
proposed that we debt our way into prosperity or that we take even more
money from one family and give it to another to make life fair.
This bill simply asks the President to let us know the plan, let us
know the consequences of sequestration. We know it's bad policy, but
the administration has not given us the details of how they will
implement the sequestration. Months ago, the House Budget Committee and
then the full House worked with six committees to create a specific
plan of how we were going to deal with this. We just want to know what
OMB's plan is and how things are going to be done.
Get us the information now.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time we
have left.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Marchant). The gentleman from Maryland
has 8 minutes remaining.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Let me start on the points of agreement.
We agree with this piece of legislation. As we said, it passed the
Budget Committee unanimously. What it does is ask for some more
detailed information on the impact of the across-the-board sequester
scheduled to take place in January. The Senate also agrees with that.
Let's make no mistake, there was an amendment on the Senate side, a
bipartisan amendment by Senator Patty Murray of Washington State and
Senator McCain, asking for additional information.
There was also agreement that we don't need more information to
understand that the across-the-board sequester cuts would have a very
negative impact on the economy and on defense and on important
nondefense investments that are important to the American people.
The issue really is what are we going to do about it. We have
proposed an alternative in this House. We proposed an alternative in
the Budget Committee, and it didn't pass. We asked for this whole House
to have a chance to vote on an alternative that had a balanced approach
that included cuts, but also additional revenues from closing tax
breaks and loopholes, and we were denied that opportunity for a vote
over here.
Let's be very clear about what Senator Reid has said and what the
President has said on a number of these issues, both the tax issue, as
well as the sequestration issue that we're debating today. The
President of the United States has been very clear that he would like
today for the Congress to pass legislation to extend tax relief to 98
percent of the American people, all the middle class tax cuts. He wants
us to get it done today. In fact, what some people don't realize is
that those tax cuts would also benefit folks at the very top. In fact,
it provides tax relief to 100 percent of Americans compared to current
law. Let's get that done. If we agree on it, let's act now.
The same is true with the sequester. The keys to this lock are in the
hands of our Republican colleagues. We've agreed that part of the
solution is cuts. We did a trillion dollars in cuts last year, 100
percent cuts. We've also said we can do additional cuts, but we should
also deal with the revenue side of the equation if we're serious about
the deficit.
The chairman talked about our use of the word ``balance.'' It's the
same use that the Simpson-Bowles and Rivlin-Domenici bipartisan
commissions have made. What they have said is any serious approach to
reducing the debt, in this case replacing the sequester, requires cuts,
yes, but also revenues.
The reality is, in this House of Representatives, 98 percent of our
Republican colleagues have signed a pledge to this fellow by the name
of Grover
[[Page H4925]]
Norquist. What that pledge says is you can't eliminate one penny of tax
breaks, you can't eliminate one dollar of taxpayer subsidies for the
oil companies, or ask folks who are making more than a million dollars
a year to pay one more dollar for the purpose of deficit reduction.
They won't do it. Nor does that pledge allow them to take a dollar tax
subsidy away for the purpose of defense spending.
We hear a lot of talk about the importance of defense spending. We
agree. Secretary Panetta has talked about it. We think we should pay
for it. Rather than just talk about defense spending, why don't we also
pay for it? We have put two wars on our national credit card: Iraq and
Afghanistan. Many of us proposed that we help pay for those as we go so
we wouldn't be leaving the bill to future generations, to the children
of the troops that are fighting those wars. We should pay for them.
But, no, those two wars went on the credit card.
Now we're talking about defense. The Armed Services Committee has a
hearing today on the impact of defense. As we've said, we agree that we
don't want to see that. But when faced with the simple choice of
cutting more tax breaks for oil companies or asking folks at the very
top to pay a little bit more for defense and to reduce the deficit, no,
they won't touch that.
Let's understand the underlying issue here, both on the tax issues at
the end of the year, which we can solve today if our Republican
colleagues will stop holding 98 percent of the American taxpayers
hostage until they get a continuation of the tax breaks for the folks
at the very top, and we can deal with the sequester today if our
colleagues are willing to take the balanced approach recommended by
every bipartisan commission. That's what's at issue.
Mr. Speaker, let me close with this. We've heard a lot of talk about
how asking the folks at the very top to pay a little more would hurt
the economy. The reality is we've tried the trickle-down theory. It's
in place right now. We tried it for 8 years under the previous
administration. The last time we had a balanced budget was at the end
of the Clinton administration in 2001. Then-President Bush came in with
back-to-back tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the very
wealthy. What happened at the end of the 8 years? We lost private
sector jobs. So much for the theory that tax breaks for the folks at
the very top trickle down and lift everybody up.
{time} 1320
They lifted the yachts, but the boats ran aground, and that's the
reality. That's what we are hearing from our Republican colleagues.
When it comes right down to it, we've been willing to make some tough
cuts, and we're willing to make more. But because of this pledge or
other reasons, our Republican colleagues refused to deal with the
deficit in a balanced way. They refused to ask folks at the very top to
chip in a little bit more to reduce our deficits and to help pay for
defense. Let's take action today to prevent the cuts, not just to
defense, but to non-defense.
It's interesting. I hear our Republican colleagues talk about the
jobs created by defense, that's true. You know, building aircraft
carriers creates jobs. Somehow building aircraft carriers creates jobs
that building roads and bridges doesn't. The President has a jobs bill
that's been sitting in this House of Representatives since September, a
major boost in infrastructure.
We have 14 percent unemployment in the construction industry. We have
roads, bridges, and transit systems in need of repair. The American
Society of Civil Engineers has given our Nation a D, grade D.
It's a win/win. Let's spend more there, boost jobs and the economy,
do a job that needs to be done. But no, you know, cutting defense
spending and work on tanks, that will hurt jobs, but it's okay not to
fund the President's infrastructure proposal to put people back to work
building bridges and roads.
Let's have a rational conversation here, Mr. Speaker, about what
works and what doesn't work, and how we can take this balanced approach
to reducing our deficit and eliminating replacing the sequester so we
can avoid the cuts to both defense and non-defense.
I look forward to getting the information called for by this piece of
legislation. OMB is actually already crunching the numbers. There are
lots of details, I hear, but our time here would be best spent putting
in place a plan to replace the sequester rather than simply asking for
more information.
More information is good. Solving the problem is better.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time
I have remaining?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin has 2 minutes
remaining.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my
time.
Mr. Speaker, if all this borrowing, taxing, and spending was the
secret to economic success and prosperity, we would be on the verge of
entering a golden age, along with Greece.
The so-called balanced alternative plan by the other side is balanced
in that it does have deficit reduction of $30 billion, according to the
Congressional Budget Office, but only because after the $55 billion
spending increase scored by CBO, it has an $85 billion tax increase. If
we keep going down this road, Mr. Speaker we're going to get the same
results.
What did we start with in this Congress? We passed a budget that cuts
spending, that reformed government, that reformed the taxes and gets
back to economic growth to puts us on a path to prosperity to pay off
the debt.
The Senate hasn't passed a budget for 3 years. Then we engaged in
negotiations on the debt limit to try to get a down payment on deficit
reduction and the Budget Control Act resulted.
Therefore, the supercommittee failed, and the sequester is about to
kick in. So again we took action in the House, and we passed the
reconciliation package that replaces the sequester, which resulted in a
net $242.8 billion in additional deficit reduction. We put specifics on
the table, passed them through the House again. The crickets are
chirping in the other body in the Senate. No leadership from the
President, no leadership from the Senate, no leadership.
What this is is simple. Since there is an absence of leadership on
these critical fiscal issues from the President of the United States,
from the Senate of the United States, at the very least show us how
this is going to work. If you're not willing to replace the sequester,
tell us how it's going to be implemented.
That is simply a matter of transparency. We're not judging the
debates or the merits or the each other's ideas and how to replace it;
we're simply saying to OMB tell us how it's going to go down, because
this seems to be your only plan.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to follow the
bipartisan example that has been set in the Budget Committee and let's
have a nice bipartisan vote on behalf of transparency from the
legislative branch.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 5872, as amended.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and
nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 414,
nays 2, not voting 15, as follows:
[Roll No. 471]
YEAS--414
Ackerman
Adams
Aderholt
Alexander
Altmire
Amash
Amodei
Andrews
Austria
Baca
Bachmann
Bachus
Baldwin
Barber
Barletta
Barrow
Bartlett
Barton (TX)
Bass (CA)
Bass (NH)
Becerra
Benishek
Berg
Berkley
Berman
Biggert
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Bishop (UT)
Black
Blackburn
Blumenauer
Bonamici
Bonner
Bono Mack
Boswell
Boustany
Brady (PA)
Brady (TX)
Braley (IA)
Brooks
Broun (GA)
Brown (FL)
Buchanan
Bucshon
Buerkle
Burgess
Burton (IN)
Butterfield
Calvert
Camp
Campbell
Canseco
Cantor
Capito
Capps
Capuano
Cardoza
[[Page H4926]]
Carnahan
Carney
Carson (IN)
Carter
Cassidy
Castor (FL)
Chabot
Chaffetz
Chandler
Chu
Cicilline
Clarke (MI)
Clarke (NY)
Clay
Cleaver
Clyburn
Coble
Coffman (CO)
Cohen
Cole
Conaway
Connolly (VA)
Conyers
Cooper
Costa
Costello
Courtney
Cravaack
Crawford
Crenshaw
Critz
Crowley
Cuellar
Culberson
Cummings
Davis (CA)
Davis (IL)
Davis (KY)
DeFazio
DeGette
DeLauro
Denham
Dent
DesJarlais
Deutch
Diaz-Balart
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Dold
Donnelly (IN)
Doyle
Dreier
Duffy
Duncan (SC)
Duncan (TN)
Edwards
Ellison
Ellmers
Emerson
Eshoo
Farenthold
Farr
Fattah
Fincher
Fitzpatrick
Flake
Fleischmann
Fleming
Flores
Forbes
Fortenberry
Foxx
Frank (MA)
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Fudge
Gallegly
Garamendi
Gardner
Garrett
Gerlach
Gibbs
Gibson
Gingrey (GA)
Gohmert
Goodlatte
Gowdy
Granger
Graves (GA)
Graves (MO)
Green, Al
Green, Gene
Griffin (AR)
Griffith (VA)
Grijalva
Grimm
Guinta
Guthrie
Gutierrez
Hall
Hanabusa
Hanna
Harper
Harris
Hartzler
Hastings (FL)
Hastings (WA)
Hayworth
Heck
Heinrich
Hensarling
Herger
Herrera Beutler
Higgins
Himes
Hinojosa
Hochul
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hoyer
Huelskamp
Huizenga (MI)
Hultgren
Hunter
Hurt
Israel
Issa
Jenkins
Johnson (GA)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson (OH)
Johnson, E. B.
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Jordan
Kaptur
Keating
Kelly
Kildee
Kind
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kinzinger (IL)
Kissell
Kline
Kucinich
Labrador
Lamborn
Lance
Landry
Langevin
Lankford
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Latham
LaTourette
Latta
Lee (CA)
Levin
Lewis (CA)
Lipinski
LoBiondo
Loebsack
Lofgren, Zoe
Long
Lowey
Lucas
Luetkemeyer
Lujan
Lummis
Lungren, Daniel E.
Lynch
Mack
Maloney
Manzullo
Marchant
Marino
Markey
Matheson
Matsui
McCarthy (CA)
McCarthy (NY)
McCaul
McClintock
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McHenry
McIntyre
McKeon
McKinley
McMorris Rodgers
McNerney
Meehan
Meeks
Mica
Michaud
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller (NC)
Miller, Gary
Miller, George
Moore
Moran
Mulvaney
Murphy (CT)
Murphy (PA)
Myrick
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal
Neugebauer
Noem
Nugent
Nunes
Nunnelee
Olson
Olver
Owens
Palazzo
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor (AZ)
Paul
Paulsen
Pearce
Pelosi
Pence
Perlmutter
Peters
Peterson
Petri
Pingree (ME)
Pitts
Platts
Poe (TX)
Pompeo
Posey
Price (GA)
Price (NC)
Quayle
Quigley
Rahall
Rangel
Reed
Rehberg
Reichert
Renacci
Ribble
Richardson
Richmond
Rigell
Rivera
Roby
Roe (TN)
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Rokita
Rooney
Ros-Lehtinen
Roskam
Ross (AR)
Ross (FL)
Rothman (NJ)
Roybal-Allard
Royce
Runyan
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Ryan (WI)
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sarbanes
Scalise
Schakowsky
Schiff
Schilling
Schmidt
Schock
Schrader
Schwartz
Schweikert
Scott (SC)
Scott (VA)
Scott, Austin
Scott, David
Sensenbrenner
Serrano
Sessions
Sherman
Shimkus
Shuler
Shuster
Simpson
Sires
Slaughter
Smith (NE)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (TX)
Smith (WA)
Southerland
Speier
Stark
Stearns
Stutzman
Sullivan
Sutton
Terry
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Thompson (PA)
Thornberry
Tiberi
Tierney
Tipton
Tonko
Towns
Tsongas
Turner (NY)
Turner (OH)
Upton
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Walberg
Walden
Walsh (IL)
Walz (MN)
Wasserman Schultz
Waters
Watt
Waxman
Webster
Welch
West
Westmoreland
Whitfield
Wilson (FL)
Wilson (SC)
Wittman
Wolf
Womack
Woodall
Woolsey
Yarmuth
Yoder
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
Young (IN)
NAYS--2
Engel
Hinchey
NOT VOTING--15
Akin
Boren
Filner
Gonzalez
Gosar
Hahn
Hirono
Jackson (IL)
Jackson Lee (TX)
Lewis (GA)
Polis
Reyes
Ruppersberger
Sewell
Stivers
{time} 1354
Ms. McCOLLUM changed her vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
So (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the rules were suspended and
the bill, as amended, was passed.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Stated for:
Mr. FILNER. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall 471, I was away from the Capitol
due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been present, I
would have voted ``yea.''
Mr. AKIN. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 471, I was delayed and unable
to vote. Had I been present I would have voted ``yea.''
____________________