[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 620]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




           MAKE SERIOUS INVESTMENTS IN THIS COUNTRY'S FUTURE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. YARMUTH. Mr. Speaker, tonight the President of the United States 
will deliver the State of the Union address, as we all know. If the 
reports are accurate, what he will talk about today is the need to make 
serious investments in this country's future.
  Now, we have just heard from a colleague from the other side of the 
aisle, and we have heard from many Republicans over the last few days, 
concerning the issue of spending and whether or not we need to be 
spending any more money in this time of admittedly dire financial 
circumstances.
  You know, most families, when they borrow money, they do it for two 
reasons: either for survival--they need to eat; they need to feed their 
children; they may need a house for their family; they need to clothe 
them--or they borrow because they see an opportunity to invest and to 
make their lives better down the road.
  Now, I know that many people don't think of government spending as 
investment. But if we look back not too long, just over recent history, 
the last few decades, we have seen numerous instances in which 
government investment has not only created jobs, it has spawned 
entirely new industries.
  As a matter of fact, even though people made fun of Al Gore many 
years ago, the fact is that government investment actually created the 
Internet. Government investment, through the Defense Department and 
other research institutions, has created literally billions and 
billions of dollars in private sector growth and created thousands and 
thousands and thousands of new jobs.
  We face a very difficult choice right now. We can sit back while the 
rest of the world advances, or we can make the tough choices right now 
to make serious and important investments that will not just create new 
industries but may, in fact, solve some of our most intractable 
problems. I am talking here about medical research, for one.
  We now invest $6 billion a year in cancer research. Cancer treatment 
and the cost to society because of cancer amounts to literally hundreds 
of billions of dollars each year. It costs Medicare. It costs Medicaid. 
It costs the private system. If we spent $20 billion a year on medical 
research for cancer and over 10 years finally cured it, made it 
manageable in an inexpensive way, the long-term payback to this country 
would be enormous.
  One of the problems with analyzing our health care reform proposal, 
now in the law the Affordable Health Care Act, is that we weren't able 
to factor in the long-term benefits of preventive care, research, more 
efficient operations, because they are not quantifiable.

                              {time}  1020

  But we know that if we could just deal with two major diseases, 
diabetes and cancer, then we would probably solve our long-term health 
care financial issues. So tonight the President will lay out choices 
for us. And I think this is a very, very important aspect of our public 
dialogue right now. We need to make sure that not only the American 
people, but also every Member of Congress, really understand what our 
choices are. Because it's very, very easy to stand up and say we're 
going to cut spending by $100 billion in the Federal Government when 
you're not willing to talk about what specifically you're willing to 
cut. And my colleague from Minnesota just said the President may not be 
specific. Well, the fact is, Republicans haven't been specific either.
  We need this laid out for the American people. We need it laid out 
for us. We have difficult choices. We need to make them. I think the 
President is on the right track. We cannot cut back right now on 
medical research. We cannot cut back on the type of research that will 
create new industries, particularly in the energy field. We cannot cut 
back right now in education when the rest of the world is passing us by 
in terms of the achievement of their students. And we cannot cut back 
right now on investments in our infrastructure when much of it is 
crumbling around us.
  So I look forward to the debate we're going to have over the next few 
months. It's an important debate. It's probably the most serious debate 
we've had in this country in decades, because we are at a crossroads. 
We can allow this country to become a secondary international power, or 
we can maintain our status as not just the world's largest economy, but 
the world's most ingenious economy, the world's most innovative 
country, and a society which cares about making life better for every 
American citizen.

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