[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 26 (Monday, February 25, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S798]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                             SENATE AGENDA

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Senate has a great deal to accomplish, 
including the long-delayed confirmation of former Senator Chuck Hagel 
to lead the Defense Department.
  This week the Senate will also consider two plans to avert 
devastating across-the-board cuts to military spending as well as 
domestic initiatives that keep our American families and businesses 
strong. To give our economy a foundation for growth, Congress must 
replace these cuts--the so-called sequester--with a balanced approach 
to deficit reduction.
  Democrats would temporarily replace this harsh austerity with a 
combination of smart spending reductions and measures that close 
corporate tax loopholes, end wasteful subsidies, and ask the wealthiest 
Americans to pay a little bit more, and it would avoid harmful cuts 
that will hurt American families, harm military readiness, and hinder 
our economic recovery. Families and businesses in every State of the 
Nation--in red States and blue States--are at risk because of these 
haphazard cuts.
  In the Presiding Officer's home State of Virginia, 170 teachers who 
work with disabled children could lose their jobs. That doesn't count 
any other teachers. Thousands of children will go without lifesaving 
vaccines--they will go without lifesaving vaccines--and 90,000 Pentagon 
employees will be furloughed. It is easy to talk about furloughs unless 
you are one of those people being furloughed. We don't know how many 
days a week it will be, how many days a month it will be, but it will 
be days.
  In Nevada 120 teachers could lose their jobs. Local law enforcement 
agencies will lose essential funding to prosecute crime, and thousands 
of Defense Department employees will be furloughed, losing wages that 
support their families and our State's economy.
  Residents of the Republican leader's home State would also suffer. 
Kentucky will lose Federal funding that helps police catch and punish 
domestic abusers, buys meals for needy seniors and keeps at-risk 
children in Head Start programs, and more than 11,000 Kentuckians who 
work for the Defense Department will be furloughed.
  Nationwide, sequester cuts will cost more than 750,000 jobs. More 
than 70,000 boys and girls will be kicked out of their Head Start 
programs. Meat inspectors, air traffic controllers, FBI officers, and 
Border Patrol agents will be furloughed. Small businesses, which create 
two-thirds of all new jobs in this country, will lose access to crucial 
Federal loans. Thousands of researchers working to cure cancer, 
diabetes, and scores of other life-threatening diseases will lose their 
jobs.
  But Congress has the power to prevent these self-inflicted wounds. We 
have the power to turn off the sequester, protect American families and 
businesses, and ensure our national defense.
  In the House and in the Senate, Republicans and Democrats voted to 
impose these cuts. It will take Republicans and Democrats working 
together to avert them. Twenty-eight Republicans in the Senate and 174 
Republicans in the House voted to impose these painful cuts. To say 
this is President Obama's sequester is absolutely wrong: 174 
Republicans in the House voted for these cuts--that is more than 70 
percent--and in the Senate more than 60 percent of the Republicans 
voted for the sequester. So it is unfair to say it is the President's 
sequester. We did this together. This would not have passed but for the 
overwhelming vote of the Republicans in the House and in the Senate.
  If those same Republicans would work with Democrats to find a 
balanced way to reduce the deficit, Congress could avert the delayed 
sequester today--now. Unfortunately, Republicans would rather let the 
deficit cuts go into effect than close a single wasteful tax loophole. 
They would rather cut Medicare, education, and medical research than 
ask a single millionaire to pay a single dollar more in taxes.
  The overwhelming majority of Americans wants us to compromise before 
their neighbors, friends, and family members get pink slips or notices 
that they can only work a few days this week or this month.
  The overwhelming majority of Americans--including 56 percent of 
Republicans--supports Democrats' balanced approach. It is all over the 
country. All over the country Americans favor this approach, a balanced 
approach, by a large margin, including 56 percent of Republicans.
  So once again the only Republicans in the entire country rejecting a 
reasonable, balanced compromise are Republicans in this building--
Republicans in Congress.

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