[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 162 (Tuesday, October 10, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H7905-H7907]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECENT DISASTERS THAT HAVE BEFALLEN OUR AMERICAN PEOPLE
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, there are so many things that we need to
talk about. Important events are spilling upon Americans, just
cascading upon us. We could spend hours and, indeed, should spend hours
talking about North Korea. We should and will spend hours talking about
tax reform, or tax reductions, or serious benefits for the superwealthy
in America, and we will talk about that. We will debate that.
But what is on my mind right now are the disasters that have befallen
our American people. We think about what has happened over the last 11
months--floods on the East Coast, people forced out of their homes as
the rivers rose in the Carolinas.
We think about California, and the massive floods, and the 200,000
people who were evacuated from their homes in my district.
We think about the recent hurricanes as they slammed into Houston,
Florida, the Keys; and Hurricane Maria, as that hurricane devastated
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. These traumatic disasters are now
in our memory, but they are also our reality.
In California today, in my district, and in my colleague Mike
Thompson's district, thousands of homes have been burned to the ground
and people have died.
These disasters are not new to America, and, over the years, we have
set up a mechanism to deal with them. That mechanism is the
firefighters across this Nation who respond, the emergency plans that
have been put in place.
I know during my period as insurance commissioner in California, I
would often arrive at these disasters, some of which go back more than
30 or 40 years, and console people who will have lost their home and
attempt to deal with their insurance issues. And I would always remind
those who were in the path of these flames, or hurricanes, or
tornadoes, to be prepared; that Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.
And now, in California, the same message goes out by the first
responders and, indeed, by myself here on the floor of the House of
Representatives: Be prepared. Be prepared to evacuate. Think about what
it is you need to take ahead of time, those important papers, those
scrapbooks, those photo albums, the dog, the cat; and when the time to
go arrives, when that message arrives on your cell phone, or on the
loud speaker from the police car out in front, obey it. Get out. Get
out because you have already prepared.
Yes, you should have had that insurance policy that you forgot, that
flood insurance program. Yes, you should have had it. And all too
often, we have to rely upon the generosity of charities, and,
thankfully, they are there. And we also rely upon the Federal, State
and county governments.
Today, here in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate, as
well as in the administration, we are beginning to gear up for yet
another emergency appropriation to pay for the relief efforts that are
underway. It is not going to be enough. It may take care of part of
what occurred in Houston, or in Florida, or in the Keys. It is
certainly not going to be enough to take care of the devastation in
Puerto Rico.
And I know, as the fires continue to rage in California, the
appropriations that are being discussed, the emergency money for FEMA,
will not be enough.
While we are looking at these disasters and the billions upon
billions of dollars that will be needed to rebuild the infrastructure,
to rebuild the schools and hospitals, to pay the bills for the
emergency work that is going on, this House of Representatives, this
week, is in the process of trying to figure out how to pass a massive
tax cut that will take trillions of dollars of revenue away from the
Federal Government.
It is estimated anywhere from $2 trillion to $5 trillion, depending
upon the details, over the next decade, will not be available for the
next disaster.
Will it be added to the deficit? Possibly.
Will those revenue reductions be balanced by cuts to Medicare? Yes.
It is already being discussed. It is in the Republican budget.
Will those $2 trillion to $5 trillion reductions in revenue be added
to the deficit, or will we cut Medicare? They tried to do it in the
Affordable Care Act, now they are coming back with a budget bill that
would cause it to happen again--more than $1.5 trillion pulled out of
the Medicaid program. And so there will be another disaster, a slow-
building disaster of millions of Americans who will not be able to get
healthcare.
So, added on top of the burden of rebuilding America, the emergency
appropriations to pay for the ongoing and past disasters, we need to be
aware of the inconsistency of thought that is going on here.
We are looking at an appropriation bill to pass something in the
range of $15 billion, in addition to the previous $12 billion, which we
know will not be sufficient to deal with the existing disasters; to say
nothing of the billions of dollars that are owed to the counties and
States for disasters going back, at least in California, 10 years,
where the Federal Government has yet to reimburse the counties and
State for the obligations that the Federal Government accepted, in some
cases, a decade ago.
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In the face of all of that, we are going to reduce revenues to the
Federal Government.
Who gets the tax breaks?
Well, here is a fact that the Vice President--excuse me, Mr. Speaker,
if I might--has suggested in California: that it is the poor that will
get the tax break.
Not so. They will get a little, to be sure. The middle class is
likely to get a tax increase.
But the real tax break, the top 1 percent get 80 percent of those
revenue reductions. Eighty percent will flow to the top 1 percent of
America's wealthy. So if you are concerned about income inequality, you
better be paying attention.
One must wonder: What is the logic of what is happening here? What is
the logic?
In the face of disasters that have occurred, historically, but more
recently within the last year--floods in California, floods in the
Carolinas, hurricanes, fires, tornados in the Midwest--in the face of
all of that, we are going to massively reduce the ability of the
Federal Government to respond. It doesn't make much sense to me,
particularly when the beneficiaries of those tax reductions are the
superwealthy.
I think it is 2,500 families in America that would benefit from the
elimination of the estate tax--2,000-plus families. It is some $6
billion to $9 billion of revenue lost every year so that 2,000
superwealthy families don't have to pay an estate tax.
What is going on here?
600,000 low-income housing vouchers gone so that they can pass on
their wealth to the next generation. Income inequality.
In the face of the disasters, we need to stop for a moment as we
begin the appropriations process for the FEMA emergency appropriations.
We need to stop for a moment and consider the way these two things work
together.
I was in my district, Davis, California, for an event on Sunday, and
I had several students--some of whom are my interns--come to me and
say: What are you going to do about the student loans? There is a lot
of happy talk around here that we are going to make higher education
free. It is a great idea.
It used to be that way when we were building the economy, when we
knew, if we educated people, we would have a strong, growing economy.
But tell me, in the face of a $2 trillion to $5 trillion reduction in
the revenues to the Federal Government so that the wealthy can get
wealthier, how are we going to ever reduce the cost of education to
Americans?
I don't know. Maybe somebody has the answer here. It doesn't seem
clear to me that that could be happening.
I am going to introduce a bill again this week--one that I introduced
in the last session--that is kind of based upon the fact that Americans
across this Nation are able to refinance their homes at a lower
interest rate. It is a great idea. I have done it. I suspect many of
the people who are listening, and certainly many of the Members of
Congress, have refinanced their home to get a lower interest rate.
But if you have a student loan that may have been from 5 or 8 years
ago, or you are about to sign a document this fall for a Federally
financed student loan, you cannot refinance that.
Why?
The Federal Government--there is $1.3 trillion of student loans out
there. Nearly $900 billion of that $1.3 trillion is owed to the Federal
Government.
Why don't we refinance those loans? What if we were to do that? What
would it mean to the students out there who are paying 5, 6, 7, 8
percent interest to the Federal Government that is able to go out and
borrow money for 10 years at 2 percent?
That is a pretty good margin.
Even the fat cats on Wall Street can't have a margin that big, but
the Federal Government does. So these students are paying these high
interest rates so that the Federal Government can literally profit on
their backs. That is a fact. Let's allow those students to refinance
those student loans. Let's just see what happens.
The Federal Government can borrow money at less than right around 2
percent--maybe a little less right now; add a percent for management
fees, 3 percent; reduce all of the student loans, $800 billion, $900
billion of student loans. The government would go out and borrow it at
2 percent for 10 years and tell the students and those who are no
longer in school: We are going to allow you to refinance. Take an
interest rate that may be half of what you are getting now.
By the way, why are we charging a fee to these students so that they
could borrow money? Don't we want them to get an education? Don't we
want them to be able to improve themselves?
Yet we require a fee. So let's eliminate the origination fees.
It is as though the Federal Government were some sharks out there
dealing with home mortgages. No. We are dealing with students and their
lives. If we can do this, maybe it is a couple of thousand dollars over
the life of that loan that that student can then invest in their life
and in their family.
These are things that are possible. These are things that we ought to
be doing. There is just a lot of happy talk around here: Oh, we are
going to make education free.
It would be good if we could. We could if we don't cut the Federal
revenues by $2 trillion to $5 trillion over the next decade. Eliminate
origination fees. Save low-income borrowing. It is all possible. The
art of the possible ought to be what we are doing, not the art of
enhancing those who are so wealthy already.
I am going to paraphrase a fellow that is pretty important in
American history. FDR said something like this: The measure of our
success is not that we do more for those who have much, but, rather,
that we do for those who have little.
So what of this tax cut that we are going to spend this week and next
week, this next month, and, according to our Treasury Secretary, we
will be done by the end of the year? So what does it mean?
It means maybe a small tax break for the working men and women of
America. It means a huge tax benefit for those who are already wealthy;
the elimination of the estate tax.
It has been estimated by The New York Times that based upon our
President's tax returns of a decade ago--by the way, he won't show us
his present tax returns--that he could benefit to the tune of $1
billion with his proposed tax program.
Not bad if you can have it. But is that good public policy?
I don't think so. I don't think so; not in the face of the needs of
America. We have enormous defense needs. We have been fighting wars in
the Middle East for almost three decades now. There are other needs
that we have for our military.
You only need to listen to the Secretary of Defense and others as
they talk about the need to rebuild much of the American military. The
admiral responsible for the Pacific Theater says that he needs
something rather important: munitions.
Munitions. Wow.
Yes, we have needs. We have students who are paying interest rates
far higher than is necessary, unable to refinance their Federal student
loans because the law doesn't allow it. But it is possible. In fact, it
would make a lot of economic sense. These young men and women might
actually start a family; might actually be able to buy a home or a car,
start a new business, start a small business. There are a lot of
possibilities.
But the superwealthy need another tax break?
I don't think so. I don't think so at all. And I don't quite
understand the happy talk by our leaders of this administration who
like to say: Not to worry. You are going to get to deduct the first
$25,000.
Well, yes. And then what?
Oh, by the way, there is this 20 percent increase in the bottom tax
rate, from 10 percent to 12 percent. That is a 20 percent increase. At
the top tax rate, it goes from 35, unless you are able to maneuver into
their little scheme where you can actually reduce your tax rate to 15
percent by being an LLC--a limited liability corporation--or a
subchapter S corporation.
Well, if you have the money to hire a good accountant and a lawyer,
there are a lot of ways you can scheme and scam. And if you are a
corporation, some of our largest corporations are able to hire the
lawyers and the accountants and duck their taxes entirely.
[[Page H7907]]
The list is long. The list is actually rather maddening. Apple, GE,
AT&T, and others, the big ones, their tax rates are down in the zero or
in the less than 10 percent range, and they want more.
So Puerto Rico is devastated. My counties in California are facing
rampaging fires, and perhaps as many as 2,000 homes have already
burned. There will be another tornado and another hurricane.
The question for us is: Will there be the money for the Federal
Government to provide the support that we should do to help Americans
rebuild?
That is a fundamental question.
I know that there is a better way. I know that in the proposal that
our Republicans have put forth there will be less money for
infrastructure. I know that if you want good-paying jobs, the
construction industry has good-paying jobs. I know that for every
dollar we spend on infrastructure, the economy will grow by $2 or more
and have a foundation for future economic growth.
I know that when we rebuild the infrastructure of our communities
that have been devastated by hurricanes, tornados, floods, and fires,
that the communities can come back strong and the economies for those
communities can flourish. I know that it takes a strong American
Government to make that happen.
Mr. Speaker, as we enter this week, my heart and thoughts go out to
those millions of Americans who have been devastated by the hurricanes,
floods, and fires; those people in my district who have lost their
homes, and those who have lost their lives.
I come here to the floor to say: Let us think seriously about what
our obligation is to Americans, to those who have little, to those who
have lost everything. What is our obligation to them?
FDR was correct: The measure of our success is not that we do more
for those who have much, but, rather, that we do for those who have
little.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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