[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 178 (Monday, December 16, 2013)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1885-E1886]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS RESOLUTION, 2014

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, December 12, 2013

  Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak on H. J. Res. 59, the 
``Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 and Pathway for Sustainable Growth in 
Medicare Reform Act of 2013.''
  On the positive side: Republicans--and the bipartisan deal does not 
cut Medicare, Social Security, or Medicaid benefits by a penny even 
though our friends across the aisle went into the talks insisting on 
cuts to programs like Head Start, Housing, Social Security, Medicaid, 
and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs that sustain children, 
families, and seniors.
  The agreement increases discretionary spending caps under the 2011 
Budget Control Act (BCA) for FY 2014 and FY 2015 to partially restore 
spending cuts that would otherwise be made those two years under the 
sequester required by the BCA.
  Under the measure, the sequester for FY 2014 and FY 2015 would be 
reduced to restore $63 billion in spending authority for those two 
years--while $85 billion in cuts to mandatory programs and revenue 
increases would be made to more than offset that increased spending and 
provide for a net $23 billion in deficit reduction.


                      Budget Caps & Sequestration

  The budget proposal increases FY 2014 discretionary spending by $45 
billion and FY 2015 spending by $18 billion compared with their 
scheduled sequestration levels, with the increases equally split each 
year between defense and non-defense spending (a $22.4 billion increase 
for each category this year and a $9 billion increase for each in FY 
2015).
  Those increases would set a $1.012 trillion limit on discretionary 
spending for FY 2014 and a $1.014 trillion limit for FY 2015. Under the 
current stopgap funding law, discretionary spending set at the woefully 
inadequate sequestration level of $986 billion.
  Under the new caps, defense spending for FY 2014 would be set at 
$520.5 billion (about $2 billion more than current funding), while 
nondefense spending would be increased to $491.8 billion.
  Because of the circumstances that led to the budget impasse during 
the first session of the 113th Congress, I introduced H. Res. 375, a 
bill expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress 
should refrain from shutting down the Federal government or 
conditioning the resolution of fiscal and budgetary disputes on the 
taking of action relating to non-germane legislative matters.
  I invite members from both sides of the aisle to co-sponsor H. Res. 
375.
  The budget proposal before us is not perfect--far from it--but it is 
a modest and positive step toward preventing Republicans from shutting 
down the government again and manufacturing crises that only harm our 
economy, destroy jobs, and weaken our middle class.
  A self manufactured crisis by the Republican majority resulted in a 
government shutdown that lasted 16 days and cost taxpayers $24 billion.
  The cost to Federal employees and the people they serve cannot be 
calculated.
  As with any compromise there are some things in the agreement that I 
support and some things that I strongly oppose.
  The agreement allows Congress to move forward in meeting its 
obligations to the American people by alleviating some of the damage 
being caused by sequestration.
  It is useful to chronicle the severity of the suffering and pain 
inflicted by sequestration on the most vulnerable residents of Texas 
and the Constituents that I serve.


                     Sequestration Impacts on Texas

  Head Start and Early Head Start services were eliminated or severely 
impacted with approximately 4,800 children being impacted throughout 
the state of Texas.
  Families in my district who rely on Federal Government programs like 
Head Start are hurting. The pain did not start with the shutdown, but 
with sequestration which hit Head Start programs for 3 to 4 year olds 
in the Houston area hard: $5,341 million cut; 109 Employees cut; 699 
Slots for children cut.
  Head Start and Early Head Start Programs were further stressed by the 
federal government shutdown.
  On October 2, I joined hundreds of Head Start supporters from across 
the country and many of my colleagues to protest the closing of Head 
Start programs due to the federal government shutdown.
  I picked up one of the tiny blue chairs that represented the 
thousands of Head Start children from around the nation and said that 
an empty Head Start chair represents a future doctor, engineer, 
president, or teacher who is at risk because of the Federal Government 
shutdown.
  My support of Head Start and Early Head Start is based on what I have 
seen and heard about programs like the AVANCE-Houston Early Head Start 
program serving parents and children in the 18th Congressional 
District.
  The AVANCE-Houston Early Head Start is a program serving low income 
families in my Houston Texas District.
  I visited with AVANCE-Houston administrators earlier this month 
because I wanted to get an update on how low-income families with 
infants and toddlers and pregnant women served by the program were 
doing.
  The AVANCE-Houston Early Head Start's mission is simple: 
AVANCEHouston works for healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, 
enhance the development of very young children, and promote healthy 
family functioning.
  AVANCE-Houston serves nearly 1,800 children city wide. Each of these 
families and their children are suffering the effect of the legislative 
malpractice of the House majority.
  Sequestration has cost AVANCE-Houston $842,518 Head Start and Early 
Head Start in lost funding for ending the harmful effects of 
Sequestration on programs like Head Start had to be a priority.


     Sequestration and House Budget Bill's Negative Impact on the 
            Supplemental Nutrition Assistant Program (SNAP)

  The House Republicans' Farm Bill proposed cutting our nation's food 
assistance programs, known as SNAP, by $20.5 billion to stay within the 
unrealistic funding limitations set by sequestration even though a cut 
of this magnitude would deprive millions of children, seniors, disabled 
persons, and families of the benefits they need to survive in an 
economy that has not yet fully recovered from the worst recession since 
the Great Depression.


                               SNAP Facts

  In the 18th Congressional District an estimated 151,741 families live 
in poverty.
  According to the Census my city of Houston more than 442,881 persons 
live near the poverty level.
  The percentage of Texas households experiencing food insecurity (18%) 
ranked second only to Mississippi.


                We know that there is hunger in America

  For more than 40 years, SNAP has offered nutrition assistance to 
millions of low income individuals and families. Today, the SNAP 
program serves over 46 million people each month. Households with 
children receive about 75 percent of all food stamp benefits. 23 
percent of households include a disabled person and 18 percent of 
households include an elderly person. The FSP increases household food 
spending, and the increase is greater than what would occur with an 
equal benefit in cash. Every $5 in new food stamp benefits generates 
almost twice as much ($9.20) in total community spending.
  According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 16.7 
million children under 18 in the United States live in households where 
they are unable to consistently access enough nutritious food for a 
healthy life.


                            Food Insecurity

  16.7 million Children lived in food insecure households in 2011.
  20 percent or more of the child population in 37 states and D.C. 
lived in food insecure households in 2011.


                       Emergency Food Assistance

  Nearly 14 million children are estimated to be served by Feeding 
America, over 3 million of which are ages 5 and under.
  54 percent of client households with children under the age of 3 
participated in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, 
Infants, and Children (WIC).


                                Poverty

  In 2011, 16.1 million or approximately 22 percent of children in the 
U.S. lived in poverty: Participation in Federal Nutrition Programs.
  In fiscal year 2011, 47 percent of all SNAP household contained 
children.
  During the 2011 federal fiscal year, more than 31 million low-income 
children received free or reduced-price meals through the National 
School Lunch Program.
  Unfortunately, just 2.3 million children participated in the Summer 
Food Service Program that same year.
  This proposed budget protects SNAP programs from crippling cuts for 
2014-2015.
  In addition to providing relief from sequestration there are a number 
of other good provisions in the Budget Agreement. For example:

[[Page E1886]]

       The Budget Agreement Protects Social Security and Medicare

  The budget agreement blocks a scheduled 23.7 percent reduction in the 
Medicare reimbursement rate for physician services set to occur January 
1, in order to meet the sustainable growth rate. Instead, the measure's 
so-called ``doc fix'' provides a 0.5 percent increase for the first 
three months of 2014, and it also extends more than a dozen Medicare-
related programs.
  The budget deal makes sure that doctors who treat seniors have a 
guarantee of payment for the medical services they provide.
  The budget agreement also addresses the issue of payments to 
hospitals that treat large numbers of uninsured patients.
  The budget also makes changes to payment rates for inpatient services 
in long-term care hospitals.
  Congressional Budget Office estimates that the three-month doc fix 
would cost $7.3 billion and that the efforts to reduce the burden to 
taxpayers would reduce spending by $9 billion.
  The net direct spending for health care related programs, after 
factoring expansion of health care programs, would be an overall budget 
reduction of $300 million over 10 years.
  The agreement scales back the proposed cuts to federal employees 
sought by Republicans and exempts current federal employees.
  Federal employees under the budget agreement would receive a pay 
increase--the first in three years.
  Sequestration cuts would be diminished under this budget agreement, 
which opens the Federal government up for new hires in the coming year.
  Federal employees are making contributions toward budget reduction 
considering the three years of no cost of living increases and the 
increased contributions toward retirement plans for new government 
hires and military retirees.


                         On the negative side:

  Mr. Speaker, it is outrageous--it is scandalous--that the budget 
agreement does not include an extension of unemployment insurance for 
the 1.3 million jobless workers will have their benefits cut off on 
December 28, and nearly another 1.9 million will lose their 
unemployment benefits over the first half of next year.
  If Congress does not extend unemployment insurance, an additional 3.6 
million workers will lose access to benefits in 2014.
  In Texas, 68,900 jobless workers will lose their unemployment 
benefits on December 28th.
  An additional 106,900 Texas workers will lose access to benefits in 
2014.


                           UNEMPLOYMENT RATES

  The national unemployment rate remains at 7 percent and the 
unemployment rate in Texas sits at 6.4 percent.
  This is no time to reduce unemployment insurance.
  Unemployment Insurance was not designed to be a lifelong program, but 
a means of addressing short-term unemployment that most Americans 
experience over the course of their work lives.
  The unusual circumstances of a global recession that began in the 
United States with the access and abuse of our nation's financial and 
mortgage insurance systems that trapped homeowners with mortgages that 
were much higher than the value of their homes.
  This fiscal situation strained our nation's economic system then to 
add the cost of two wars fought at the same time for nearly a decade 
the nation's economy could not take the strain and by the end of 2008 
the Great Recession could not be ignored.
  It took time to create the economic down turn and it will take time 
for communities, families and workers to recover. The unemployment 
insurance program should reflect that reality by providing support to 
workers until the economy is fully recovered.
  If Congress does not act immediately to extend these benefits, a 
devastating blow will be dealt not only to the millions of Americans 
who are already struggling, but to our economy.
  That is why yesterday I joined more than 170 of Democratic colleagues 
in calling upon Speaker Boehner not to adjourn this House for the year 
without extending the vital unemployment insurance desperately needed 
by millions of our fellow citizens.
  To let their benefits expire in the middle of the holiday season is 
cruel and heartless and unworthy of a great and generous nation.
  Cutting off unemployment benefits at the end of the year will only 
further hurt an economy already injured by sequestration and the 
Republican government shutdown.
  The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 750,000 fewer jobs 
will be created or retained in calendar year 2013 because of the budget 
cuts under sequestration.
  The government shutdown cost our economy an additional 120,000 jobs 
and $24 billion in tax dollars in the first two weeks of October alone, 
according to the Council of Economic Advisors.
  The Economic Policy Institute estimates that cutting off extended 
unemployment benefits would cost our economy 310,000 jobs next year 
because of reduced consumer demand.
  Other experts, like Michael Feroli, the chief economist at JPMorgan 
Chase, indicate that allowing the federal unemployment insurance (UI) 
program to expire could shave as much as 0.4 percentage point off our 
economy's growth in the first quarter of 2014.
  Letting unemployment benefits expire will deprive our economy of the 
positive impact unemployment insurance provides since financially 
stressed unemployed workers spend any benefits they receive quickly.
  CBO also concluded in a 2012 report that assistance for the 
unemployed has one of the ``largest effects on employment per dollar of 
budgetary cost.''
  This is why I will be introducing a bill to extend the emergency 
Unemployment compensation program by an additional 12 months.
  A colleague recounted what happened when Wal-Mart sought to fill 600 
positions--23,000 people came to apply for positions.
  Although employment rates have improved the numbers of unemployed 
persons still has the nation at a 7 percent unemployment rate.
  The length of time people are unemployed is a serious indication that 
this recovery is not vigorous enough or strong enough to take away 
money that is needed to keep people in housing and allow them more time 
to find employment.
  It is estimated that there are approximately 4 million jobs available 
and 12 million persons unemployed.
  There is speculation that businesses are reluctant to hire because of 
the uncertainty created by the dysfunction exhibited by Congress 
especially during 2013.
  This is yet another reason why the budget agreement is important to 
pass, although it does not have everything I would want. It may signal 
to business that Congress is ready to get down to work on our nation's 
problems and not threaten economic calamity by not raising the debt 
ceiling and thereby threatening not to meet our fiscal obligations.
  Congress cannot close its eyes and hope that businesses will start 
hiring--the purpose of unemployment insurance is the same purpose of 
any insurance--when it is needed for as long as it is needed it must be 
available.
  I am not closing my eyes, Mr. Speaker; I will be introducing a bill 
to extend unemployment insurance for the 12 million Americans who are 
still in need of support until the economy is healthy again.

                          ____________________