[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15420]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           EDUCATION FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, there are many in this chamber who say, and 
I am among them, that we must be careful with running up the deficit 
and the debt because we are borrowing from the future. Dollars we 
borrow today will be paid back by our kids and our grandkids over the 
next 30 years. In fact, that is why I voted against the so-called 
stimulus bill. I felt it borrowed too much and invested too little in 
the future. It cut way back on the transportation infrastructure 
investments in favor of tax cuts. Borrowing money for tax cuts doesn't 
make sense. There is no benefit to be passed on to the future 
generation, and it certainly didn't put people back to work.
  So as we approach the bill today, we have to keep that in mind: Are 
we borrowing from the future? And, will this provide benefits to people 
in the future?
  The bill before us today would fund education. In my State, we are 
headed toward having the shortest school year in America. We are 
stealing from our future. We are stealing from our kids. If they don't 
get those school days this year, they can't make them up next year or 
after they have graduated. We are shorting them for the rest of their 
lives on a good education. We are going to have some of the largest 
class sizes in America. You can't teach a class of 38 or 40 kids in 
middle school. It isn't a good educational experience. We are stealing 
from their future.
  I am hoping today that the funds we will vote for will be used by my 
State to plug the holes this year. I don't want to see them sitting on 
that money and saying, ``Oh, well, maybe things will be worse next year 
and we will avoid future cuts.'' No. The cuts are today. They are 
hurting kids today. They need to plug those holes today, put teachers 
back to work, lower the class size, get the school years back up to a 
reasonable length.
  There are other cuts that can be taken care of by this vote again 
today. In my State, we are cutting back on State police even though we 
have one of the lowest ratios of policing in the United States of 
America. We have an epidemic of people in our rural areas who do not 
have adequate law enforcement and are being plagued by crime and drug 
dealing and other things. We need more State police on the roads.
  Our seniors need to be maintained in their homes, Oregon Project 
Independence. Our community colleges are cutting back at the same time 
when they are seeing record enrollment from people who are trying to 
get a job in a bad economy. Those holes can be plugged today. But are 
we borrowing from the future with this legislation? Well, no. Actually, 
for once, we are paying for it.
  Now, we are going to hear a lot of whining on the Republican side of 
the aisle about, oh, this is bad and this is more just borrow and 
spend. No. What they are really going to be whining about is the fact 
that we are closing some very juicy foreign tax loopholes for U.S. 
corporations. We have little things that are called the hopscotch of 
deemed dividends. We have the Cayman Islands, Bermuda. Sound familiar? 
And we have daisy chain investment overseas so they can avoid U.S. 
taxes. When we built the greatest Nation on earth, corporations paid 40 
percent of the taxes in this country; today, they pay 7 percent because 
of loopholes like this. This bill will close the loopholes.
  Now, the Republicans will gnash their teeth over that because there 
has never been a loophole too good for them. They want more loopholes. 
And they should like this part, and I have some doubts about this, but 
it is going to reduce food stamp benefits in the future by $12 billion. 
Now, they always carry on about welfare and welfare cheats. I have got 
a lot of people dependent upon food stamps who were formerly hard 
working in my district and my State. But the balance here of essential 
public services, of a decent education for the future, and those cuts, 
I can accept. And getting rid of the corporate loopholes, I am with 
that every day of the week. The Republicans are for loopholes. We are 
against them. We are for education, we are for kids, we are for vital 
public services. They are not.

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