[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 2793]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



  SEATTLE EARTHQUAKE AN EXAMPLE WHY CONGRESS NEEDS A BUDGET BEFORE IT 
                        DEBATES A TAX BREAK BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Inslee) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. INSLEE. Madam Speaker, the Seattle earthquake last week gave us a 
telling example why it is grossly irresponsible to bring a huge tax cut 
bill to this floor before we do a budget.
  There is a lot wrong with this bill. Many people have heard many of 
these problems: the fact that it gives 43 percent of all the benefits 
to just 1 percent of Americans. That is a problem. The fact that it is 
based on really phony fiscal hallucinations based on these 10-year 
projections when we cannot even project 10 months from now. That is a 
problem. But perhaps the biggest kind of problem was made clear to us 
in Seattle last week on the very day that a 6.8 on-the-Richter-Scale 
quake hit Seattle. The administration tried to hit our earthquake 
preparedness programs by trying to kill Project Impact.
  Project Impact is a Federal program that is designed to help improve 
local communities' earthquake preparedness programs, a program Seattle 
had used to good effect and which was effective in reducing losses. Why 
did that happen? Well, the Vice President said that Project Impact was 
ineffective.
  Try telling that to the first graders at Stevens Elementary School in 
Seattle, who I visited last week, the day after the quake, who, until 
Project Impact came along, did their studying underneath a 1-ton tank 
of water that was prone to going right through the ceiling and down 
onto their classroom because it was not secured adequately for a 
standard earthquake. But then Project Impact dollars came along. The 
school district secured that water tank and no one got hurt. In fact, 
in the seven schools in the Seattle school district that had used 
Project Impact monies, none of the structures that had been dealt with 
caused any damage.
  This is an effective program. These Federal investments saved lives. 
We ourselves saw that in Seattle last week. This is an effective 
program. So why did the administration try to kill it? Well, that is 
kind of interesting. The Vice President has said this program was 
ineffective. But when I asked Joe Allbaugh, our FEMA director, the 
Federal Emergency Management Agency director, who has done a great job 
by the way on this disaster, he told me he had not even been consulted. 
Nobody asked him about Project Impact. Somebody in the Bush 
administration got out a red pen and just drew it right through that 
project and tried to kill the program.
  Why did that happen? Well, it is pretty clear. This was an 
indiscriminate cut that was simply made to try to accommodate and make 
room for these tax cuts, and it is a disgrace. It is a disgrace to know 
that the first casualty of the Bush tax cut is a program that in 
Seattle, in fact, prevented casualties. When we do tax cuts before we 
do a budget, bad decisions are made. And this is perhaps the most 
visible and first one in this sorry state of affairs.
  We should reject this bill. We should go back and do our jobs, do the 
budget first, and a reasonable, responsible tax cut that meets our 
obligation to the American people.

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