[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 40 (Tuesday, March 19, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H1625-H1628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 2040
COMPETING BUDGETS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2013, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to address
an empty House, but perhaps a few are watching C-SPAN.
We've just heard a fascinating 4-hour discussion on economic policy.
A fundamental part of our work here in Congress is to set the economic
policy for the United States. As we listened to that 4-hour debate and
discussion, there were a lot of charts and a lot of economic theory on
both sides: small government versus an active, investing government;
the growth of taxes, or the lack thereof; a discussion about jobs and
the like. I'd like to first start my discussion this evening on what we
ought to be doing. That is the purpose of all of this.
I harken back to the 1930s, a period of time when the Nation was in a
very serious Depression, unemployment was rampant, and there was a lot
of pain and suffering throughout this Nation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
was the President at the time. Today, we are in a somewhat better
situation, but still there's a lot of pain, a lot of unemployment, and
a lot of families in desperate situations. Back in the thirties,
Franklin Delano Roosevelt put forth his New Deal. He articulated--at
least a part of it--with what I call ``The Test.'' He said:
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the
abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide
enough for those who have little.
That's a value statement. That's a statement about how he saw the
role of government, and I agree with him.
Our task here today, as we debate tomorrow and the next 2 days what
the economic policy of America will be, we ought to harken back to what
Franklin D. Roosevelt said in the 1930s: ``The test of our progress.''
``The test of our progress.''
What are we to do? Are we to follow policies that would enrich the
wealthy even more? And we have one such proposal before us; it's the
Ryan Republican budget. It would slash the top tax rate from 39 percent
to 25 percent and add another quarter of a million dollars of income
annually to those who are making over 400--or over $1 million a year. I
think that goes counter to what Franklin Roosevelt said:
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the
abundance of those who have much.
[[Page H1626]]
The remaining portion of that proposal by Mr. Ryan would put a
greater burden on the working men and women and the poor, and it's done
in two ways. One way is to remove those tax write-offs that the middle-
income, that the working men and women have, significantly reducing
those and cutting off those programs that people without jobs depend
upon--from unemployment insurance to food stamps and to other benefits
that they have--so much so that their actual tax burden would rise by
somewhere between $2,000 to $3,000 a year. Franklin Roosevelt said the
test of our progress is ``whether we provide enough for those who have
little.''
So if we are to believe that our role in government is to provide, to
assist, to help, to bring up those who have little--the men and women
who are unemployed, the families that have lost their homes, those who
are searching for a well-paying job--if that is the test of our
progress, if that is our value and our purpose, then I think we'd
better think about a different economic policy than is presented to us
by the Republicans. I would like to spend some time discussing that
this evening.
First of all, there's an immediate situation in which the
sequestration--which I have voted repeatedly to end, and many of my
colleagues have also--is inherent in the Republican proposal. That
sequestration will bring pink slips to 750,000 Americans in this year,
the 2013 year; 750,000 Americans will lose their jobs. So if the test
of our progress is to help those who have little, well, the Republican
budget adds 750,000 people to those who will have very little. They
would lose their job.
So why would we do this? Why would we do any economic policy that
would add 750,000 people to the unemployment rolls? It makes no sense
if you want to grow the economy. If you want to reduce your tax
revenues and increase your deficit, I suppose this is one way to do it,
but it's not a very good way.
I will tell you that in my district, at Travis Air Force Base, where
men and women are going to lose their jobs, where 20 percent of their
pay will be cut, it's a very serious problem for our Nation's defense.
Because from that Air Force base, the big C-5As and the C-17s that
carry men and women and equipment across this globe to fight our wars,
to protect our Nation, they will be sitting on the ground. They will
not be doing their training. They will not be prepared to carry out
their task in defending this Nation.
Why would we do that? It makes no sense to me. Whether it has to do
with the test of our progress or our values or our Nation's defense,
why would we want to move a policy that would send 750,000 people
through the unemployment lines? It makes no sense to me at all.
I was home in my district this last weekend and I was talking to some
elderly people that attended one of my meetings. They were asking me,
Is it true that you guys are going to cut Medi-Cal?--which is the
Medicaid program in California. I said, No, not us guys; but, yes,
there is a proposal in Congress to seriously cut Medicaid, and
therefore Medi-Cal. They said, Don't they understand that that's how my
husband is supported in the nursing home? What are we to do if those
cuts force him out of the nursing home?
Well, the reality is that that could happen, because we have a budget
on the floor that 435 of us will be voting on in the next couple of
days that actually will reduce the Medicaid--and, therefore, Medi-Cal
in California--by a third, a third cut. Therefore, that lady who was
concerned about her husband's care in the nursing home will find a
problem.
{time} 2050
She and perhaps many, many others--not perhaps, definitely--many
other senior citizens are going to find their opportunity to have care
in a nursing home removed. It's a very serious issue because who are
those people that are going to see their Medi-Cal, or across this
Nation, Medicaid support significantly reduced by one-third? Well, here
they are. Two-thirds of them are seniors and people with disabilities.
We're not talking about welfare and all that goes with that. We're
talking about seniors and men and women in this Nation that have such
disabilities that they cannot care for themselves. These are the people
that are going to be hurt. Another 20 percent of them are children.
Why? Why would this House vote for a budget that would harm seniors,
the disabled and children? Why would we do that? Perhaps the argument
that you heard over the last 4 hours is, well, we need to deal with the
deficit. Yes, we do. But do we need to deal with it in this way, that
we go after seniors, we go after people with disabilities that cannot
care for themselves and children and take it to them? And at the very
same time in the very same piece of legislation give the superwealthy
an additional, extraordinarily large amount of money that the average
worker in the United States would have to work 5 to 6 years to equal
the tax reduction given to those who are earning a million dollars? And
for those that are earning a billion dollars, it is add three to four
more zeros to their tax reduction.
Why would we do that? It makes no sense. It is not the American
value. It's not what FDR said should be the test of our progress--
seniors, children and disabled. Why would we do that?
When you look at that budget and you look at that proposal a little
more, what do you see? The seniors, not those who are in nursing homes
without income, but seniors, the average senior. The average senior in
the United States has a median annual income of $22,800--median. Half
of the seniors in this Nation have an annual income of less than
$22,800. Half of them have more than that.
So where are we with the proposal that we'll be voting on in the next
couple of days from our Republican colleagues? It is a proposal that
will end the Medicare program as we know it, and all Americans who are
not yet 55 years of age will never see the Medicare guarantee that is
available to those Americans that are now 65 and 55 years or older, the
Medicare guarantee of a health care program that has, since its
inception in 1964, taken nearly all of the seniors in this Nation out
of poverty when together with Social Security.
Before there was Medicare in 1964, there was rampant poverty among
seniors. I've said on this floor before, and I'll say it again tonight,
one of the searing memories in my mind was a trip when my father took
me to the county hospital in Calaveras County in the 1950s to visit my
neighbor, a rancher, who could no longer take care of himself. He
didn't have the money, he was poor, and he wound up in the county
hospital. There was a ward, perhaps 20 seniors in the worst possible
condition without adequate medical care, simply lined up bed to bed to
die.
What are we doing here? What are we doing? Why would we set up a
program to end one of the most important, valuable programs to every
American citizen? That is the promise of Medicare, a comprehensive
medical program for them to take care of their health in their senior
years. Why would we end that and turn it over to the health insurance
industry?
Now, I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years. I
know the health insurance industry, and I know their number one
purpose: it's profit. They continually will put profit before people,
and yet the proposal that is given to us by the Republican majority is
to take every American under the age of 55 and give them a voucher so
that they can go to those rapacious health insurance companies and try
to get an adequate health insurance policy.
The guarantees that are in the Affordable Care Act would be wiped out
by their legislation. The guarantees of an adequate insurance program,
the end of discrimination based upon age and preexisting conditions,
gone, wiped out. What are they thinking? What are they thinking? Do
they understand what the American senior is going through? I think not.
I think not. When you consider who those seniors are, I don't
understand. I do not understand.
Now, there's an alternative, there's an alternative put forward by
our Democrats on this side. You've heard it discussed here in the
previous 4 hours. It is an equivalent that is a reflection of the basic
American value of taking care of each other, of helping each other, the
value of a community, a small community perhaps like I live in in
California, the community of Walnut Grove, or the large community of
all of us, over 300 million Americans, where we care for each other,
where we
[[Page H1627]]
test our progress by making sure that all of us are lifted up, not just
the superwealthy, not just those who have everything they could
possibly need--I understand they may want more--but rather to provide
the basic needs of these who have nothing or little--health care, food,
shelter, and clothing.
That's where we're coming from. We do it in a way that actually
reduces the deficit over time, brings back into a reasonable balance
the annual appropriations and the revenues of this government, does it
in a way that meets the needs of this generation and future
generations, does it in a way that makes the critical investments that
grow the economy, rather than stifle the economy by pulling out of the
economy, as our Republican colleagues would, the essential elements of
economic growth.
There are five of them. I've talked about this for more than 25 years
in California and beyond. Those critical investments in present and
future economic growth are simple, but they are powerful, and they are
absolutely necessary. They are education, research, infrastructure,
manufacturing--making things here in America--and change. Those are the
five elements. And now that we're here at the Federal level, we must
add to that our Nation's security, defense and others.
Let me put a couple of things up here. Growing the economy: growing
the economy requires that we invest in infrastructure. This is both
immediate and long term.
{time} 2100
When we invest in infrastructure, we put people to work now. We can
do this. Men and women and companies and contractors are ready to go to
work. The skilled labor force is there. All they need is for this
government to fund a substantial infrastructure program, and that's
precisely what the Democratic budget does. It adds $50 billion now to
the appropriations for this year and creates an infrastructure bank so
that we can have a public-private partnership to build those
infrastructure programs that have a cash flow: sanitation projects,
water projects, toll bridges, toll roads, airports. Many of the
infrastructure programs that this Nation desperately needs can be
financed with an infrastructure bank. For those that cannot be financed
with a public-private partnership, we can and we must use our general
fund revenue to build the infrastructure.
For every dollar we invest in infrastructure, we immediately return
to the economy $1.57. Don't take my word for it. Take Mark Zandi's
word, an economist for Moody's Analytics.
Nobody has debated that point. So why don't we invest in the
infrastructure? When we do so, we will be safer. We'll have safer
airports; our roads will be safer, they'll be paved; and the potholes,
not all will disappear, but over time. We will improve our highway
system. And our bridges, many of which are deemed to be insufficient
and unsafe, can be repaired and rebuilt. And in the process, we've laid
the foundation for future economic growth.
On the education side, it is exactly the same. On the education side,
if we educate our children, if we have the best education program in
the world, something very good will happen to this Nation. First, we
will be competitive.
If we fail to educate our workforce, there is no way that we can be
competitive. Yet, the budget being proposed by our Republican majority
slashes the education programs in this Nation. And for those who are in
college or have graduated, they would double the interest rates on
student loans. What are they thinking?
On the other hand, our Democratic budget would actually increase
funding this year for education, keeping teachers in the classroom,
giving schools the opportunity to improve. In the infrastructure
program, there are facilities and the opportunity in higher education
to continue to keep students in school.
For those who need additional training in the work programs, the
Workforce Investment program would be augmented, and we would be able
to provide the upgrade in skills and education for those who are
unemployed so that they would have a chance to get a job in a growing
economy. We envision a growing economy where jobs are created. We know
that this year the difference between the budget that we're proposing
and the budget that our Republican colleagues are proposing is a
difference of 1.2 million jobs.
With the continuation of the sequestration, 750,000 jobs will be
lost. We end that. That's 750,000 on the plus side. And with the
investments in education and infrastructure, we would add another
400,000 to 500,000 jobs. That's 1.2 million jobs. There's a big
difference here: Americans going back to work and Americans being laid
off.
We also know that the future economy demands that this Nation become
and continue to be the most aggressive, robust research Nation in the
world. We are today. No one, no other country, no other university in
any other country can match the research that's done in the United
States. It is that research that has kept this economy ahead, has kept
us moving forward, yet here again we see a departure in how to grow
this economy, how to create jobs.
Our budget, our proposal would continue to fund the research programs
and, in fact, augment them more than what is currently available in
today's appropriations. On the other hand, there are slashes to the
research budget.
Today, farmers from my district, today researchers at the University
of California at Davis, today the head of the Northern California
Resource Conservation District organization came to my office and said,
We need your help. We need your help to deal with a very real problem
in California. Over the years for a variety of reasons, the aquifers,
the underground water tables of California have been contaminated with
nitrates, nitrates from the farm, nitrates from fertilizer, dairies and
the rest.
There is a requirement, in fact a necessity, to reduce that
contamination and, in fact, to eliminate it. However, in order to do
so, fundamental research in the way in which plants take up nitrogen
needs to be undertaken so that the nitrogen fertilizer that is applied
to the fields matches the amount of nitrogen that the plants actually
need. And that varies from soil condition to soil condition. Yet, in
the budget that's been proposed by our Republican colleagues, there is
a $45 million diminution, reduction in the available research money at
the University of California at Davis, critical research needed by
farmers so that they don't unnecessarily fertilize their fields, so
that they accurately match the needs of their plants to the amount of
fertilizer they apply. In so doing, they reduce the contamination that
is a serious health problem in many parts of California.
Which path do we go on? Do we invest in energy research critical to
this Nation? It was, in fact, past research conducted by the United
States Government, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of
Energy that created the knowledge and the techniques for fracking,
which has opened up a vast resource through this Nation, a gas
resource, natural gas resources, as well as oil.
Research is fundamental: energy research, agricultural research,
research in health care, research in the way in which we conduct our
communications system. All of these things are fundamental, yet a
choice will be made in the next few days which path we go on.
The fourth point I wanted to make is this: Manufacturing.
Manufacturing matters. Manufacturing is where the middle class is.
Manufacturing is where we built the great American middle class, making
things, cars, refrigerators and the more advanced things such as high-
speed trains and the like. We need to return this Nation to a
manufacturing Nation. This is the creation of wealth. Using research,
new products, new technologies, new ways in which we can make things,
advanced manufacturing technology, we can rebuild the great American
manufacturing sector.
We lost 9 million manufacturing jobs in the last 20 to 25 years.
America can't afford that. We need tax policies. We need policies that
encourage manufacturing in the United States. It was 2\1/2\ years ago
that we passed legislation that eliminated many of the tax breaks that
corporations had to offshore jobs. We need to finish that job. The
President said clearly in his State of the Union message we need to
provide tax breaks for on-shoring, bringing those
[[Page H1628]]
jobs back to America, and end the remaining tax breaks that
corporations get for off-shoring. In so doing, we build our economy and
we help to balance the budget by bringing tax revenues back to this
Nation.
{time} 2110
Manufacturing matters. Billions of dollars of our tax money are spent
every year on goods and services, many of which are not made in
America.
Why in the world would we spend our tax dollars on steel that's
manufactured in China to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge?
This is 43 million tons of steel, maybe 3,000 to 6,000 jobs in China,
not in the United States--American tax money spent. It goes on and on.
We need a strong Make It in America, Buy It in America policy so that
our tax money is spent on American-made products and services, not on
foreign made. Now, if you want to spend your own money out there,
fine--buy whatever you want to buy--but if you're going to spend
American taxpayer money, then we should spend that money on American-
made equipment.
That is precisely the policy that we are offering here in the United
States as we move our infrastructure programs forward and as we move
forward with our energy development--our solar and our wind and other
advanced energy systems. It is to use our tax money to build American
manufacturing, once again, here in our Nation. So manufacturing
matters, and we will Make It in America when, once again, it is made in
America. It is very fundamental.
So these are the things: education, infrastructure, research,
manufacturing, and change. We have to be willing to change in many,
many of our policies.
How can we pay for this? Here is one novel idea. We can end those tax
breaks that are given to individuals and to corporations that are no
longer necessary.
The oil industry over the last decade earned $1 trillion in profit.
This is the Big Five. It's not all the small ones. It would be much
higher if you added the small ones. We are in the midst of an energy
boom right now--oil, natural gas. We are producing more energy of
natural gas and oil than we have in the last two or three decades.
Also, the oil companies are doing pretty well, yet they continue to
receive billions of dollars a year--perhaps as much as $5 billion, $4
billion for the Big Five in the oil industry--of your tax money to
support them as their profits have added up to over $1 trillion. This
is just the Big Five in the last decade.
Why would we do that? Why would we continue to use our tax money to
support the oil industry? They get enough at the pump from us. They
don't need a tax break. Let's take that tax break, turn it around and
put it into tomorrow's energy systems, into supporting the green
technologies--the solar, the wind, the conservation programs, the
electric car systems, the batteries that will power those systems in
the future--as we transition our economy from where we were to where we
must be in the future. That's just one example of the tax breaks that
are not necessary, and there are numerous other ones.
Why would we give Wall Street hedge fund billionaires an additional
tax break where their real income--I mean, not capital gains, but their
earned income--is taxed at capital gains rates rather than at an income
tax rate? Why would we do that? We should end those kinds of tax breaks
that are not necessary for economic growth and shift that money into
deficit reduction or into assisting those future industries that we
need to have or, perhaps, into research or education.
These are all strategies for the future, and they affect my
communities that I represent. The infrastructure programs are crucial
to my communities. I represent 200 miles of the Sacramento River. The
second-most flood prone part of this Nation, the second-most at-risk
cities in this Nation are in my district.
One proposal would reduce the infrastructure money needed to upgrade
the levees to provide the protection for human life and property.
Another proposal is to invest in infrastructure. One proposal is to
cause layoffs and to take out those civil servants who are working in
the Army Corps of Engineers and to say, For 20 percent of the time,
you're going to be furloughed; you're not going to work. So the Army
Corps of Engineers' work necessary to design, to oversee and to push
forward the projects that I need in my district in order to protect my
citizens will be delayed. It will be delayed through the next storm
season.
We pray we won't have a flood, but why should we even have to pray
when our proposal on the Democratic side would fully fund those
civilians in the Army Corps of Engineers who are necessary to push
forward the projects to protect Sacramento, to protect Marysville, to
protect Yuba City, and to provide the money--the Federal share of the
cost--of rebuilding and upgrading those levees? I'm not the only place
in this Nation that is faced with that. We saw recently Superstorm
Sandy, and we know the horrible impact that that had on New Jersey, New
York, and the surrounding areas. We need to rebuild. We need to put
that infrastructure in place because we know there will be additional
superstorms in the future.
We are looking at a fundamental policy here, a fundamental question
of our values as Americans. Are we going to have an investment strategy
that grows the American economy and puts people back to work and
protects Americans? Whether they are poor or impoverished, whether they
are children or seniors, are we going to put in place policies that
meet their basic needs? And for those future seniors, will they have
the promise of Medicare? That is a question before the House of
Representatives that in the next 3 days will be answered.
I pray and I work with my colleagues to see to it that we have a
growth agenda, that we have an agenda of jobs, that we have an agenda
to care for those who have little, and that we honor this value:
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the
abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide
enough for those who have too little.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back my remaining time.
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