[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 29 (Thursday, February 28, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H806-H811]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SEQUESTRATION
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Ms. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, in this Chamber, we've heard over the last
several days numerous speakers who have spoken quite eloquently about
the impact of sequestration on their communities and their constituents
across this country; and I daresay there are many Americans who have no
idea what sequestration is. But they will come to know, Mr. Speaker,
exactly what sequestration is when they figure out that of the range of
programs and services that impact them and their communities, the
Federal Government is taking a step backwards because of Republicans'
failure to bring forward a balanced approach to dealing with our
budget. In fact, we've just been moving from one crisis to the next
crisis.
Today, in this House Chamber, we did something very special. We
passed the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which was
first passed in 1994 and had enjoyed bipartisan support up until
recently. We ended up passing the Senate version of the Violence
Against Women Act which, frankly, we could have done about a year and a
half ago but for failure in this House Chamber.
In passing the Violence Against Women Act, we, on the one hand,
provided for authorizing funds to support shelters, services, and
programs for victims of domestic violence, many of them women, all
across this country. And on the other hand, March 1 sequestration looms
and, in fact, is happening, and we take away with one hand what we've
provided with the other under the Violence Against Women Act that was
just reauthorized today by a bipartisan vote with overwhelming support
from Democrats. But tomorrow, $29 million will be cut from the very
shelters and programs that we authorized today.
Six million women all across this country face domestic violence, and
yet the programs and services that they depend on from the Federal
Government will be ripped away in a sledgehammer approach--across-the-
board cuts, arbitrary cuts to the budget beginning on March 1.
Workers and families all across this country have truly grown weary
of watching this and past Congresses create and kick down the road
fiscal disaster after fiscal disaster. Sequestration is going to rattle
our very still-recovering economy and take an axe hammer to so many
agencies and programs that are struggling to meet their work loads to
deliver services for the American people.
{time} 1300
Sequestration is estimated to lower the U.S. economic output by $287
billion.
In the Fourth Congressional District of Maryland that I have the
privilege of representing in this Chamber, people are truly preparing
for the drastic impact sequestration will have on them, their capacity
to pay their bills and to meet their obligations.
These cuts are devastating, and today we're here to talk very
specifically about the devastation to women
[[Page H807]]
and children across this country, and specifically to women of the
impact of sequestration. Whether that is the devastating cuts to the
Women, Infants, and Children program that so many low-income women
depend on; school nutrition programs in our Nation's schools; K-12
education; cuts to Head Start; cuts to serving children with
disabilities; cuts to health care screenings like cancer, cervical
cancer and breast cancer screenings that so many women rely on, and
this at a time when we just discovered that, in fact, younger women are
suffering from greater rates of breast cancer than ever before in our
history, here we go slashing and burning a budget.
I don't like to use the term ``war on women,'' but, Mr. Speaker, as a
woman, it sure feels like it. Sequestration definitely has that impact.
Joining me today, who I will yield to in just a few moments, is my
good friend from New York, Carolyn Maloney, who has been quite a leader
on a range of women's issues, and she knows clearly the devastating
impact of sequestration on women.
Mrs. CAROLYN B. MALONEY of New York. I want to thank my colleague for
leading this very important Special Order and to note two women's
issues that will be introduced next week.
One is the women's museum. It will cost no extra money and will
create a commission to put a women's museum on the Mall. We have it for
postage stamps, flights. It should be there for half the population,
and it is something, hopefully, we can move forward with in a
bipartisan way.
Also, next week, I'm reintroducing the equal rights amendment. We
really lag behind in the Western World in not having that important
provision in our Constitution. But regrettably, this country has a
habit of sweeping women's issues under the rug and ignoring them; and
this meat cleaver approach through sequestration will
disproportionately hurt women.
Tomorrow, $85 billion will be cut from our budget, sequestration will
go into effect, and economists predict that over 700,000 jobs will be
lost.
Chairman Bernanke testified yesterday before the Financial Services
Committee that the sequester could make it harder to reduce the
deficit, not easier. The whole purpose of sequestration is to reduce
the deficit. But as he pointed out in his testimony--and I will quote
him directly--he said that it would have ``adverse effects on jobs and
incomes,'' and ``a slower recovery would lead to less actual deficit
reduction.'' So here we are hearing from the head of the Federal
Reserve and many economists that sequestration will literally hurt the
deficit, hurt our economy, and hurt jobs.
Why can't we agree on a measured, balanced approach that targets
certain areas such as tax loopholes? Why in the world are we giving tax
deductions to companies that move jobs overseas? We should be giving
tax incentives to people who create jobs in America, not those who move
their companies and their jobs overseas. And why are we giving up to 40
percent subsidies to very profitable oil companies that are making
profits? Why are we doing that when we are going to be turning around?
Because of sequestration, we'll be cutting teachers, which is the
very investment that we need for the future. Teaching is one of the
professions that is disproportionately headed by women. So
disproportionately these cuts are not only going to hurt the future of
our country, but women teachers and male teachers in our country.
I am particularly concerned in one area that my friend mentioned, and
that's research. This country has invested in research, and it is one
of the areas that has moved us out of our recessions with innovative
ideas. But there are across-the-board cuts in research. NIH may face as
much as 40 percent cuts. That's the National Institutes of Health.
Right now, 1 in 7 women contracts breast cancer. Because of the
research in our great country, lives are being saved. There are 2
percent more lives saved each year because of new breakthroughs in
breast cancer treatment. I venture to say there is not a person in this
body or America who doesn't have a sister, a mother, a grandmother, or
a friend who has not suffered from breast cancer. Yet the treatments,
the research, the medical facilities that are there to help women
confront this disease will be cut back in the sequestration.
Men also are contracting breast cancer. It is a disease that men are
suffering from, and also prostate cancer, but the breakthrough in cures
every year to save lives are going to be cut.
This past week, I had a meeting with some of the teaching hospitals
in the district that I am privileged to represent, and they had a
survivor there. His life had literally been saved with a new
breakthrough in treatment and technology that they had developed while
at Cornell. He testified that the doctors there with their new research
had literally saved his life.
It is this lifesaving, cutting-edge research that we will be cutting
away, along with many other important areas. Why are we passing the
Violence Against Women Act and then turning around and cutting it
dramatically with sequestration?
So I join my good friend from the great State of Maryland in really
protesting sequestration. The approach doesn't work. Even Chairman
Bernanke says it's wrong, wrongheaded, and will not help us reduce the
deficit. And it particularly is disastrous to programs, research, and
health care that impact women.
With that, I thank the gentlelady for organizing this Special Order.
Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentlewoman from New York. Thank you
so much for your leadership.
You know both as a woman and a woman legislator what this impact is
going to be to your communities in New York, and I know what they will
be to mine in Maryland.
Sometimes, Mr. Speaker, we throw out these numbers, and most
Americans have no idea what these numbers mean in real terms. From
March 1, until the end of this fiscal year, we'll have to cut $85
billion with a wide range of impacts across this country. Women are
going to be disproportionately impacted by these. And there is no other
word, Mr. Speaker, for these absolutely senseless cuts.
It is as though as legislators we are brain dead when it comes to
making decisions that impact people's lives. These deep cuts are going
to slash vital investments in job training, in public health, in public
safety and education and small business. We know that so many women are
juggling multiple responsibilities. They are juggling the
responsibilities of their homes and their families; the
responsibilities of a job or running a business; the responsibilities
of being active in their community and making sure that there's a
quality of life for themselves and their children.
They're also doing this and operating at the absolute margin. It's
really unfair and completely lacking in compassion to place this
additional burden of sequestration on their already burdened
households. Even worse, low-income women and women of color who are
toiling in the fragile economy at the lowest-wage jobs are going to be
hit the hardest by sequestration.
I want to highlight these cuts and the resulting fiscal instability
that is in addition to the fact that we are already falling farther
behind other Western World nations in providing employment protections,
pay equity, sick leave, promoting child care services. These are all
the things that particularly women have use of as caregivers.
{time} 1310
Is this really the way, Mr. Speaker, that we see ourselves as leaders
of the free world? I don't think so.
With that, I would like to yield to my good friend and colleague from
Texas, Sheila Jackson Lee.
Ms. JACKSON LEE. Let me thank the gentlelady from Maryland and thank
her for her leadership. This is a very important statement today
because I was on the floor earlier this morning and said that we should
not go home, that we should stay here. I'll say it again: We should not
go home. We should stay here.
With all of the chatter of disagreement and accusations and blame
games, what should be the message to the American people is, in fact,
that we are committed to finding some form of common ground. Now,
common ground is enormously challenging when there is no give from our
Republican friends.
I do want to applaud the Congresswoman today in that the Violence
[[Page H808]]
Against Women Act was passed because of Democrats' championing the
right direction so that immigrant women, so that the LGBT community and
so that Native Americans could be specifically covered, which, as a
lawyer, is what the law is all about. Fuzzy legislation cannot work,
but when you specifically designate in law the protection of these
groups, then you have brought about a change. I say that only because I
want to thank our Republican friends who voted for that ultimate Senate
bill that was passed in a bipartisan way in the Senate and now in the
House.
That should be an example of what we can do with regard to this
dastardly act that is going to occur tomorrow--the sequester--which
most Americans don't even understand. So I am delighted to join and to
be able to be part of this Special Order, led by the gentlelady from
Maryland, on explaining how vulnerable women can be impacted.
We did a good act today. Vulnerable women have been in the eye of the
storm since this legislation was not reauthorized, and women's centers
and shelters all over America were feeling the ax of the non-funding of
the STOP grant, but today we made a difference. I want to make a
difference in stopping the onslaught against women and children that
the sequester will bring about, and I am going to use as an example the
impact on a State like mine--the State of Texas--that has a diverse, if
you will, congressional delegation, with more Republicans than
Democrats. Frankly, the people of the State of Texas are not interested
in what party we are; they simply want to find out why we can't come to
the floor and vote to block the sequester and find common ground.
So, to my State of Texas, let me tell you what you will be facing,
and why I want to say, stay and work, stay and work, and find some kind
of common ground. In the alternative, all of us are willing to be
called back this weekend. We're willing to be called back Friday night
and Saturday morning. I want that to be on the record. We're willing to
get back in a short order of time to come here and solve this problem.
Specifically, I have worked extensively with our teachers and schools
and school districts:
$67.8 million for funding for primary and secondary education,
putting 950 teachers' and aides' jobs at risk, meaning that they may
ultimately be terminated. Those jobs are at risk in the State of Texas.
172,000 fewer students can be served in approximately 280 schools.
That's not just in Houston; that's throughout Republican and Democratic
districts in the State of Texas. That is shameful. Texas will lose
approximately $50 million in funds for about 620 students and aides to
help children with disabilities;
Work study jobs will impact our college students. 4,720 fewer low-
income students will be able to have those jobs, and, of course, it
will eliminate the opportunity to finance the cost of college to around
1,450 students, who will not get work study jobs;
Head Start. Many of my Head Start leaders advocated and asked me, as
I was in Austin this past week, to stop the elimination of their
funding. I will be meeting with those from AVANCE next week,
approximately 4,800 students in Texas, on the reducing of access to
critical early education;
Law enforcement. Part of the Violence Against Women Act specifically
speaks to the question of helping the crime victims. When I had a gun
briefing in Texas, I made sure that the victims of gun violence were in
the room. What we'll be stopping is $1.1 million in what we call
Justice Assistance Grants, which specifically deal with our crime
victims;
This is an example of what will happen in America if you're looking
for jobs and if you want assistance from the Federal Government. It's
interesting how people make light that the Federal Government does
nothing. My friends, the Federal Government is you. It is the tax
dollars used wisely to ensure that it is a bridge, a complement, a
collaborator with State government. So you will be losing in the State
of Texas, for those of you who are searching for jobs--and you do it
every day--some $2.2 million if this goes through.
Child care. Up to 2,300 disadvantaged and vulnerable children may
lose their access to child care. That impacts women who go out every
day, one possibly to look for a job but, more importantly, to go out to
go to work. I hate the thought that 9,000 children will have a lack of
access to vaccines. That's a mother's responsibility, that's a parent's
responsibility to ensure her children are getting vaccines, and the
public health system will collapse because of the lack of resources;
$1.1 million will be lost, in particular, for HIV tests, which is
devastating among the African American community, particularly women.
We have encouraged them now to get tested. We've tried to remove the
stigma. When they go up to the door of the public health entity to get
tested, you're going to tell me that there are a million less dollars
and that the door will be closed? On the STOP Violence Against Women's
program, which we'd now reauthorize, I'm sad to say that Texas could
lose $543,000 and that 2,100 more victims will not have this.
Let me come to a close and look at it generically across America as I
cite what Congresswoman Edwards just cited about small businesses, and
I would indicate that, on a nationwide impact, two-thirds of all new
jobs we know have come from small businesses. As I listened to the news
this morning about a woman-owned business that does work with the
Defense Department, she was being interviewed, and she said, about 5
days from now, she'll literally be shut down. So what we're talking
about is losing $900 million across the Nation in helping small
businesses. That is a travesty.
When we travel internationally, one thing we sort of look at is the
question of food safety, and what we pride ourselves on here in the
United States is that which stops disease and that which stops
contamination. Well, my friends, 2,100 food inspectors for the Nation,
who deal with helping to ensure the kind of safe food for our women and
children, will be shut down. That means that billions in food
production will be shut down. I heard a plant manufacturer, or a food
manufacturer--a packaging company--say that it literally cannot do
anything without a food inspector saying ``yes.''
Let me indicate something that is very close to my heart, and that is
those who are needing mental health services. Do you realize, with the
sequester, Congresswoman, that 373,000 mentally ill adults and
seriously emotionally disturbed children will lose public services for
their needs? That is a travesty, and asks the question: Why are we
going home? Why don't we stay here and find the compromise that we did
for the Violence Against Women Act?
Let me close on our work in dealing with homeland security. I am the
ranking member on the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and
Maritime Security. We have responsibilities with ranking member
Thompson and our chairperson, who has noted in our hearings as recently
as this week that we would lose some 2,750 Customs and Border
Protection officers, CBP. Those are the individuals who allow goods to
travel, to meet individuals at airports; and we would lose 5,000 Border
Patrol officers at our borders, where we're talking about the question
of border security.
Are we talking out of two sides of our mouths? Here we're making the
argument that we want border security, and we're willing to allow 5,000
Border Patrol agents--willy-nilly--to just go away? We're allowing
difficulties with the FAA and, as well, with TSA officers of whom some
have critiqued. I serve on the Transportation Security Subcommittee.
These officers every day face the trials and tribulations of ensuring
safety on our airlines and airplanes, and we are telling them that we
don't care about security? Right now, we've got a sequester and you're
out, and we don't know how long the lines are. Frankly, the statement
is being made by my Republican friends and leadership that they simply
don't care.
We have an opportunity to work together. We can work with the Senate.
We can work with the White House. We can understand the underpinnings
of this whole debate, and that is: revenue and cuts. Why do I want
revenue? Because I want for the money not to run out when the victims
of Hurricane Sandy are desperate. That's why I want revenue.
{time} 1320
I want the Head Start programs to be funded, and I want our military
in a
[[Page H809]]
balanced way to be funded. So I support the utilization of the Buffett
rule that has been offered by the Senate, and aspects of many other
proposals. They are out there, we can do it, and we can do it with the
kind of grace and mercy and understanding of the needs of the American
people, and protecting the middle class. And, as Congresswoman Edwards
stated, we can do that with an eye on women, to make sure that women,
many of whom are heads of households, do not face these devastating
cuts that would literally shut them down, their small businesses, Head
Start, teachers for their children's schools, to ensure that there is
funding for the Violence Against Women Act.
I want to say thank you to Congresswoman Edwards for allowing us to
have an opportunity to share our concerns today. I am pained by what we
are saying today, but I am extending a hand of friendship to my friends
on the other side of the aisle. Leadership can call us back. We are
ready to be called back. We can huddle somewhere else. We can find a
way to get consensus by email so that when we come back next week, we
have an immediate vote because we have been willing to do so.
I'll close by saying I'm supporting Mr. Conyers, who has offered an
alternative that will be coming forward next week that ends the
sequestration. I believe that is the way to go to allow us more time
for debate and collaboration. I hope others will join us in supporting
this legislation we're introducing today. I thank him for his
leadership on that. I think that speaks to the fact that all Members,
Congresswoman Edwards, are following the leadership of this Special
Order, which is to protect women from this devastating impact of
sequester. Thank you so very much for the opportunity to speak today.
Ms. EDWARDS. I want to thank the gentlelady, and especially to thank
her for, Mr. Speaker, pointing out to us that in virtually everything
that impacts our lives as Americans, and particularly impacts women,
there is a devastating impact of sequestration on a whole range of
things that, you know, most of us get up every day and don't even think
about. But we will think about them beginning on March 1 because the
services won't be there.
The gentlelady pointed out, as she was speaking and as others have as
well, the devastating impacts to education. Just a few weeks ago, many
of the people in this body, Republicans and Democrats, stood on their
feet and cheered the President of the United States when he talked
about the need to invest in early education, in Head Start, in making
sure that our young people get started early in school so that they are
prepared through their education years to take on the challenges of the
21st century. And yet here we are, just a couple of weeks after that
great moment of a bipartisan show of support, ripping apart the very
programs that the President talked about that are so important, Mr.
Speaker, to the development of our children.
I would note that in my great State of Maryland, and Maryland has now
been named the State with the number one schools in the Nation for the
fifth year in a row. Well, we've been able to achieve those great
heights in Maryland because of the commitment of our governor, because
of the commitment of our legislators, and because of the commitment of
the Federal Government, especially to some of our most vulnerable
schools.
To our students who depend on investing in Head Start, to our
students who are in some of our most vulnerable communities served by
our title 1 schools, to the idea that we're going to educate all of our
young people, even those with disabilities, so that they can achieve
their greatest ability, and in Maryland we're going to see in fact very
devastating cuts to the number one school system in the country--$5
million ripped out of Head Start; $14 million ripped out of our title 1
schools; $9 million, almost $10 million, taken out of funding our young
people with disabilities, and that's a total of almost 300 jobs that
will be lost as a result of these cuts. And that's in my small State of
Maryland.
You know, we've heard from Members representing New York and Texas.
Well, they're going to suffer even more devastating cuts. I would note,
for example, in Texas, Texas will lose $51 million from education for
children with disabilities. Texas will lose $67 million from their
title 1 schools. And Head Start will lose to a tune of $30 million from
Head Start. This is devastating for women and children, for their
families.
But it doesn't end there, Mr. Speaker. Would that it would, but it
doesn't end there. Sequestration, as I said, has a devastating impact
and a disproportionate impact on women and children.
I would note that about 600,000 children and pregnant women are going
to lose access to food and health care and nutrition education,
including supplemental nutrition programs that are the difference
between having a meal or a healthy meal, or not. The difference for a
mother who, even as she is working every day, has the ability to make
sure that there is a good meal on the table for her children. Six
hundred thousand children and pregnant women will lose those benefits.
Let's look at child care. There's not a one of us, Mr. Speaker, who
hasn't had children and had the need of child care. Now if you are a
wealthy woman or if you have a high income, your needs may be very
different. But for most of us who get up and go to work every day, we
really do need child care assistance. About 30,000 children across the
country who are in low-income families are going to lose essential
Federal funding for child care services. That's about $121.5 million,
Mr. Speaker.
Let's just look at the Centers for Disease Control. Twenty-five
thousand low-income women--and this is according to thinkprogress.org
so I'm not making it up. Americans across the country can go to
thinkprogress.org, and what they can find is the same information that
I'm sharing with you today. At the Centers for Disease Control, 25,000
low-income women who rely on the Centers for Disease Control for their
breast cancer and cervical cancer screenings are just going to be lost.
So there we will have a ripple effect through the health care system as
these women, potentially with cancers that are curable, will not have
those diagnosed in time.
In Army military construction of family housing where we have so many
more female recruits who are in need of housing, they're going to lose
about $424 million. How on one hand can we say that we support and
honor those who serve and who are in uniform, but at the same time take
away the kinds of things that would be supportive for our military
families.
In the area of global health care--I mean, after all, these cuts
apply not just to those of us in the United States but to the support
that we provide for vulnerable communities around the world. There are
1.6 million women around the globe who rely on family planning
services, and guess what? They're going to be turned away, too, Mr.
Speaker.
We could go on and on, as we have. But the reality is that beginning
on March 1, beginning tomorrow, America's women and children will see
cuts to things that they had no idea about, and those cuts will be, in
fact, devastating. And what are we doing here in this Chamber? We're
going home for the weekend. Where else in America do you stop working,
Mr. Speaker, after 3\1/2\ days, a couple of journal votes saying we
approve of the business of the day, a couple of adjournment votes, a
vote to rename a space center, and then devastating cuts to health
care, to Head Start, to education, to food inspection, to all of the
things that impact so many of our families. If it weren't true, if it
weren't reality, it would seem like it was just a bad B movie, Mr.
Speaker.
{time} 1330
We can go through so many other impacts to our children, 70,000
children, Mr. Speaker, who are going to be cut from Head Start and
Early Head Start programs. Sixty percent of these program recipients,
60 percent of those 70,000 children, are children of color.
And so I guess we're saying, Mr. Speaker, that we don't care about
our Nation's children. We don't care that they go hungry. We don't care
that they're not receiving adequate child care. We don't care that
they're not getting the education that they need. Mr. Speaker, these
across-the-board, arbitrary, senseless cuts just say to the rest of
America, we don't care.
[[Page H810]]
And you know what? I would love it if the blame were equally shared
across the board, but the reality is that Republicans control this
Chamber, and this Chamber could be gaveled in tomorrow morning,
straight up, and stop this sequestration. That's what could happen, and
that is what would make a difference to America's women and children.
You know, I would look to, Mr. Speaker, women and girls across this
country and just share with them that no matter what their age, no
matter, really, what their income, whether they're young children in
school readiness programs or they're older women who rely on senior
nutrition programs, things like Meals on Wheels, that these cuts will
have an impact on them.
We've already talked, Mr. Speaker, about devastating impacts to
education. Can you believe that 7,400 special education teachers, their
aides and other staff servicing our vulnerable kids with disabilities
are going to be laid off, 7,400 educators who will be laid off because
we haven't provided the resources for them to serve our children with
disabilities? It's pretty shameful, Mr. Speaker.
I'm thinking about the landmark Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare. You
know, we did something very special, actually, in this Chamber when we
passed ObamaCare. But the reality is that, because of these looming
cuts, these cuts that will take place just hours, hours from now, Mr.
Speaker, they're going to jeopardize critical health care services,
prevention initiatives, medical research to help women lead healthier
lives. These sequestration cuts will affect millions of women.
Four million dollars is going to be cut from the Safe Motherhood
Initiative. Who knew that the Congress doesn't like motherhood? And so
$4 million in cuts, Mr. Speaker, to the Safe Motherhood Initiative.
And what does that do? It helps prevent pregnancy-related deaths. In
this great Nation, the leader of the free world, we still have
pregnancy-related deaths, and the way that we've chosen to deal with
that is through the Safe Motherhood Initiative. But, beginning on March
1, these devastating cuts will have an impact on that program.
In addition, 5 million fewer low-income families will be able to
receive prenatal health care. And we know, those of us who've had
children, know the importance of getting prenatal health care, know the
importance of a successful pregnancy that goes to term. We know the
importance of prenatal health care because it becomes a determinant of
overall health care as that child is born. And yet, with these
devastating cuts, these across-the-board cuts, these arbitrary cuts,
these senseless cuts, 5 million fewer low-income families will receive
prenatal health care. And this is particularly concerning, Mr. Speaker,
and very serious, because two to three women die each year, each day,
in fact, from complications as a result of pregnancy.
I don't know if you're aware of this, Mr. Speaker, but the fact is
that the United States has an infant mortality rate that is twice as
high as the rate of other wealthy nations. We're not a leader when it
comes to prenatal health care. It is why we need the Motherhood
Initiative.
Eight million dollars in cuts are going to go, Mr. Speaker, to breast
and cervical cancer screening. That means that there will be 31,000
fewer cancer screenings for low-income women.
Now, I suppose we could just write these low-income women off the
books. But you know what happens, Mr. Speaker? When they're diagnosed
with cervical cancer or with breast cancer, they show up in the
emergency room and they require even greater treatment, or worse, it
becomes a mortality risk because they lose their lives, not because the
cancer was not curable, but they lose their lives because the cancer
was not diagnosed.
And yet here we are, Mr. Speaker, ready to exact $8 million in cuts
that will prevent low-income women from receiving cervical cancer
screenings and breast cancer screenings. That's not what a leader
nation does, Mr. Speaker.
Now, we can recall very recently the very fierce battles to protect
Title X family planning and reproductive health services. I will just
remind the Speaker that sequester would cut $24 million from
these lifesaving programs. That's right; $24 million that would be
ripped out of Title X family planning and reproductive health services,
lifesaving programs that provide care to low-income, uninsured and
underinsured women, men, children, and families--$24 million. Our
Nation really can't afford this.
And let's talk about research. The National Institutes of Health
could lose as much as $1.5 billion in medical research funding. And
that means there will be fewer research projects for treatments and
cures for diseases like cancer, like diabetes, like Alzheimer's, like
all of these diseases where we're right on the cusp of the kind of
research that will make a tremendous difference, Mr. Speaker, in the
lives of so many, and particularly a tremendous difference in the lives
of women. But, oh, no, National Institutes of Health, on the chopping
block March 1, losing up to $1.5 billion for medical research funding.
Women, Infants, and Children programs, something that's particularly
important to me and to people in my community, to women and children in
my community, $353 million, remind you, to begin, Mr. Speaker, on March
1; $353 million cut from the Women, Infants, and Children program.
And I'll tell you, Mr. Speaker, if you go to any State in this
country, talk to your Governors. It doesn't matter whether you talk to
a Republican Governor or to a Democratic Governor. Those Governors will
tell you that the investment and the payoff for making investments in
Women, Infants, and Children programs is enormous, that it results in
great benefit, not just for the quality of lives of the women, infants,
and children who are served by the WIC programs, but, really, to
communities, enabling them, people, women, to go out and get an
education, to get on their feet, to take care of their children.
These are really lifeline programs, and they're highly effective. And
yet there's no sense to these cuts, and so we will end up cutting the
most ineffective programs in the same way that we cut the most
effective ones. That's what sequester means.
Let's look at unemployment benefits. Here we are, Mr. Speaker, really
recovering from the devastation of the economy of the last 5 years,
unemployment going down, but still the need for so many in this country
for unemployment benefits. Now, I don't know, Mr. Speaker, about other
people, but any of us who've ever received an unemployment check
because of the misfortune of losing a job, it's not a big check, Mr.
Speaker. And yet, even that small check, which is a fraction of what
your income might have been were you working, even that check will face
devastating cuts, and particularly to the long-term unemployed, to
people who are out of work and who've been searching for a new job for
at least 6 months, not because they don't want to work, Mr. Speaker,
but because the economy is recovering and because work is hard to find.
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And yet we rip apart 10 percent of their weekly jobless benefits if
this sequester goes into effect. Maybe the 1 percent or the 2 percent
out there can get away with not having 10 percent of their income. But
the families that I know, the communities I come from, a 10 percent cut
in an income is the difference between paying your electric bill and
your water bill and your rent or your mortgage. A 10 percent cut. No
one can afford that. And yet that's exactly what happens beginning on
March 1 with this senseless sequester.
Child care assistance is going to be cut by $121 million. Child care.
What great nation doesn't ensure child care for its nation's children
so that moms and dads can go out and work and not have to worry about
the care that their children are receiving? Worse yet, not have to
worry about leaving young ones unattended because the choice is between
going to work and staying at home because there's not quality child
care available. Child care assistance cuts 30,000 children across this
country who would lose essential Federal funding for child care.
And we've talked about the Violence Against Women Act. But I want to
get specific because I spent a lot of years before I came into Congress
working on these issues of violence against women, on domestic
violence, on sexual assault, on stalking, trying to make sure
[[Page H811]]
that the Federal Government meets its responsibilities for women. I've
worked on a hotline. I've been in a shelter. I know what it means to
provide those services. I know that when a woman calls and she's being
abused and she's seeking help, that that phone call needs to be
answered.
And yet, Mr. Speaker, we've passed the Violence Against Women Act and
we're running the risk that because of these cuts in this sequester--
because of these senseless cuts--that phone call from that woman in the
middle of the night calling a shelter or a program or a hotline, that
call won't be answered.
Who's going to take responsibility when that abuse results in the
death of a woman or her children because we've not done the right thing
in this Congress? That's what's at stake. And that is real and it is
harm, Mr. Speaker, to this Nation's women. And so we passed the
Violence Against Women Act, but you can be sure that what we gave with
one hand, we took away with the other hand beginning on March 1 because
of these devastating cuts to domestic violence shelters and programs
and hotline services, to the law enforcement officials who need to be
trained about issues of domestic violence so that they don't endanger
themselves and so that they provide the kind of law enforcement
assistance that's needed in every community across this country.
Mr. Speaker, you sit on that hotline and know that you can't pick up
a call because the other phone is going unanswered. Because the other
phone is going unanswered because the Congress hasn't done what we need
to do to protect women and children and their families.
The Department of Justice estimates that the cuts to the Violence
Against Women Act is going to mean that 35,927--and I want you to hear,
Mr. Speaker, every single one of them--35,927 victims will be prevented
from gaining access to shelter and to legal assistance and to services
for themselves and for their children, every single one of them
vulnerable because Republicans in this Congress, Mr. Speaker, have not
done their job. The cuts are going to mean that domestic violence
training is going to be eliminated for 34,000 police officers,
prosecutors, judges, and victim advocates. This really is shameful, Mr.
Speaker.
And for women who work and who own small businesses, the sequester is
going to be a handicap as well. And we know that women work. Some of us
work not because we want to. We work because we have to because we're
partners in our families with our spouses, with our partners taking
care of our families, taking care of our children, because we're women
living on our own, because we're women as caregivers to other members
of our family. That's why we work. We create businesses; and,
thankfully, we've had the support of the Federal Government for women-
owned small businesses, a really fast-growing sector.
But these contracts are in jeopardy, Mr. Speaker. In fact, contracts
that have been won by women-owned businesses dropped 5.5 percent in
fiscal year 2011; and the damage that they are facing now, the harm our
vulnerable women-owned businesses are facing is even more devastating.
The gender gap may reflect stiffer competition over a shrinking pool of
contract revenue, but it may get worse for women as women face
difficulty in winning a greater share of contracts in an era of these
devastating spending cuts.
And that's according to Bloomberg. It's not made up by this
Congresswoman from Maryland. It is what is happening in our economy,
Mr. Speaker. Thousands of public sector jobs are going to be lost.
That's on top of jobs that have already been lost, Mr. Speaker. And
since women are 50 percent more likely than men to be employed in the
public sector, just like education, these jobs are going to be cut and
lost needlessly.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to think that my colleagues in this
Congress have the ability to exercise common sense and rationality; but
these cuts don't reflect common sense at all. In fact, they don't
reflect much thought, in my view. When you say across the board, that
would be like in your own family budget, when you know you have to
tighten up the budget, rather than looking at where you're doing your
spending and going with a scalpel to cut that wasteful spending--in my
household, I would probably cut the coffee expenditures--but we're not
doing that. We say we cut coffee just like we cut the mortgage. We cut
coffee just like we cut the groceries. We cut coffee just like we cut
buying school clothing.
But this is what is happening with the Federal budget. We're taking
an ax or hammer to the entire budget. We're not looking at every single
line and making strategic and thoughtful and important choices about
what needs to stay and what needs to go. That's the danger here. And
for women, the impact is really substantial.
Mr. Speaker, I'm going to close now, but I wish I were closing and
saying I'll see you tomorrow. But, unfortunately, we won't be seeing
each other tomorrow, Mr. Speaker, because when you gavel out this
evening, Mr. Speaker, what you will know is that we've said sequester
is going to go into effect. So what? Sequester is going to go into
effect and we'll just come back next week and name a couple more
buildings. But we won't deal with the real issues that are facing
America's families, that are facing America's women.
And as I said before, I'm not particularly fond of the term, Mr.
Speaker, ``war on women.'' But as a woman, when I know that there's a
threat of not getting a cervical exam or a breast exam, when I know
that as a woman there's a threat of not receiving family planning
services, when I know as a woman that my children won't be able to go
to a Head Start program or that if I have a child with a disability
that that child won't receive the kind of education that he needs to
get his or her fullest potential, when I know as a caregiver that a
senior woman won't get Meals on Wheels, when I know that the important
research that could lead to a cure for Alzheimer's isn't going to
happen, Mr. Speaker, it may not be a war on women, but it feels like as
women we are on the front line and we are taking all of the heavy-duty
fire coming in.
And so I would urge you, Mr. Speaker, and I would urge my Republican
colleagues to do as my colleague from Texas said: get back to work.
Come back to work and let's do the business of the American people.
Let's take up a truly fair and balanced approach to our Nation's fiscal
problems. Let's make certain that we preserve and protect a social
safety net for so many of our vulnerable families.
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Let's make certain that we make the investments we need to make in
education, in research and development, in small business so that we
really can grow our economy, so that we, Mr. Speaker, together can
create growth, but create growth by making great investments.
So, Mr. Speaker, I will close by just saying to you that I want to
work with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, but it does
take two to tango. Unless we do that, women in this country are going
to face the devastating impact of these budget cuts that go into effect
on March 1.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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