[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 27 (Tuesday, February 26, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H633-H634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SEQUESTRATION EFFECTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. SCHAKOWSKY. We know from polling that most Americans have no idea 
what ``sequester'' means at all. In fact, one of our colleagues said 
that she was talking to a constituent who said, Yes, I am all for 
sequester. Let's sequester all the Members of Congress in a room and 
make sure that they come up with a plan.
  That's not exactly the idea. ``Sequester,'' which most Americans 
don't know the definition of, actually means that for domestic 
discretionary spending--the things that help ordinary people and 
communities and law enforcement--there will be about a 9 percent 
across-the-board cut; just a meat-ax approach. You can't even decide 
between cutting conferences or leave in the research into cancer at the 
National Institutes of Health. No, everything is going to be across the 
board, a real meat-ax approach. There will also be about a 13 percent 
across-the-board cut in military spending. That's what we're talking 
about. And if people aren't following exactly what the definition is, 
they're going to soon find out what it means in their ordinary life.
  In education, we're going to see cuts that are going to require the 
firing of teachers. About 70,000 little children are not going to be 
able to have their Head Start programs. Small businesses are going to 
find that almost $900 million will be unavailable to them in loans for 
their small businesses. We're going to lose about 2,100 food safety 
inspectors. How will it feel if we don't know for sure if we're going 
to have safe food available? And we've all been talking about the need 
for more mental health services around this whole issue

[[Page H634]]

of gun violence, yet it's predicted that about 373,000 adults and 
children who need mental health services won't find them available.
  Military readiness will be affected. We got some data on every State. 
In my State of Illinois, approximately 14,000 civil Department of 
Defense employees are going to be furloughed under the sequester; and 
that means reducing the gross pay that comes to them, citizens of 
Illinois, by $83.5 million. That's money that they won't be able to 
spend in our economy. Base operation funding for Army bases will be cut 
about $19 million in Illinois, and funding for Air Force operations 
will be cut by about $7 million. These are real cuts in military 
readiness.
  Vaccines for children. Does anybody really think that the way to save 
on our budget is to cut the availability of vaccines for little 
children? And does anybody really think that the burden of cutting the 
deficit should be on the backs of senior citizens? The median income 
for people over 65 years old is $22,000 a year. The average Social 
Security benefit is $15,000 a year and provides most of the income for 
most of the seniors in this country.
  Does anybody think there isn't one tax loophole that can be closed, 
not one more penny that can come from huge and profitable corporations 
that often pay no taxes? We have some of those huge corporations paying 
no taxes, outsourcing jobs, setting up their corporate headquarters in 
post office boxes in the Cayman Islands. Some of them are getting, 
actually, tax breaks, refunds from the government.
  Multimillionaires and billionaires can't pay a penny more, but we can 
cut the National Institutes of Health and research for finding cancer 
cures; that new drug approvals ought to be cut; that we ought to cut 
veterans services; that people ought to just wait longer at airports. 
We should even shut down some airports because we're going to have to 
furlough the air traffic controllers; that we should cut Meals on 
Wheels for senior citizens, that that's really the preferable way to 
go.
  I have to tell you this is just a crazy way to do business in the 
United States Congress, particularly since we have sensible 
alternatives. We have not seen one bill from the Republican side of the 
aisle that says, Here's our idea instead of these meat-ax cuts that are 
going to hurt people, and the Democrats have several bills we should be 
hearing on this floor.

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