[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 28 (Wednesday, February 27, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H666-H667]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               SEQUESTER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Quigley) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. QUIGLEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today because we have to get our 
fiscal house in order, but sequestration is not the way to do it.
  There is no question we need to address our unsustainable debt and 
deficit. Our debt remains above 73 percent of GDP--up from 36 percent 
just 6 years ago--and our deficit still hovers just below $1 trillion. 
But the solution must be a big, balanced, and bipartisan deficit 
reduction plan modeled on plans like Cooper-LaTourette over a 10-year 
period, not the meat-ax approach of sequestration.
  We can't pursue deficit reduction at all costs. The cure shouldn't be 
worse than the disease. The sequester will undermine our growing--but 
still fragile--economic recovery.
  The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts sequestration 
would halve economic growth for 2013. Another study projects job loss 
in 2013 alone would hit 2.1 million jobs, mostly from small businesses. 
We just went through this not more than 2 months ago, as we remember, 
the fiscal cliff. Sadly, we seem no wiser for that experience. We 
continue to bicker rather than plan; we posture rather than negotiate; 
we delay rather than decide. We go from one crisis to the next, thereby 
threatening our economy and further undermining the public's tenuous 
faith in its political institutions.
  We lack a comprehensive approach to just about every challenge we 
face, including climate change, energy, transportation, health care, 
social insurance, defense spending, immigration reform and gun 
violence. It is management by paralysis. It's budgeting with a meat 
cleaver. It's absurd, and it has to end.
  The sequester lops off $1.2 trillion from the Federal budget over the 
next decade, cutting $85 billion just this year.

                              {time}  1030

  Over the last week, I have met with dozens of groups for whom the 
sequester is not some abstract budgeting term. For these organizations 
and people back in my district, sequestration will have real, damaging 
effects.
  I met with the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, which explained that under 
sequestration in Illinois, 125 AIDS-afflicted families will lose their 
housing. Another 613 people in Illinois won't receive their medication 
through the AIDS Drug Assistance program, which will be cut by $3 
million. I also met with the Illinois Partners for Human Service and 
heard from the Ounce of Prevention Fund. Both groups informed me that 
4,000 children in Illinois won't receive Head Start services under 
sequestration. Thanks to sequestration, 4,100 college students in 
Illinois won't receive Federal work-study assistance.

[[Page H667]]

  The bigger picture in Illinois is equally devastating. Sequestration 
will cost Illinois more than 53,000 jobs and $5.3 billion in the 
State's economic output. Nationwide, sequestration threatens our 
physical safety as well as our economy. Ten percent of the FAA's 
workforce could be furloughed, resulting in reduced air traffic 
control, longer delays, and economic losses for our tourism industries. 
Meat and poultry inspectors at USDA would also face furlough, 
potentially shuttering meat processing facilities and even affecting 
restaurants and grocery stores. Layoffs at the FDA would mean 2,100 
fewer safety inspectors. There would be 25,000 fewer breast and 
cervical cancer screenings for low-income women. Mindless cuts to 
military and law enforcement affect our ability to protect our borders 
and meet the ever-present threat of terrorism, both here and abroad.
  Madam Speaker, this is unacceptable. Somewhere along the way, buried 
in the din of the 24-hour news cycle and partisan bellowing, we lost 
the art of compromise. But that's what allowed the passage of civil 
rights legislation in the 1960s and saved Social Security in the 1980s. 
Legislators of both parties sat down and talked to each other, not past 
each other, to hammer out their differences and achieve something that 
made this country better.
  I have no illusion that everyone in this body agrees with my ideas 
about reshaping Pentagon spending or reforming entitlements to ensure 
they provide benefits for generations to come; but I do know that 
making the changes that are best for the long-term interests of this 
country can't be accomplished overnight. These decisions require our 
best effort and precise planning. As the threat of sequester has 
painfully revealed, a chain saw is no way to create a budget for the 
most powerful country on Earth.

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