[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 1541-1543]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          OUR NATION'S ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is 
recognized for 18 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for recognizing me. I am coming 
down to the floor tonight to speak on behalf of the Progressive Caucus 
to talk about the real situation when it comes to our Nation's economy.
  First of all, the Republican Caucus essentially created this massive 
budget deficit themselves through two wars and a massive tax cut for 
the very wealthiest Americans--the people who didn't need a big tax 
cut, who didn't ask for a big tax cut but who got one anyway, and who 
demanded, in exchange for poor people who were unemployed, getting 
unemployment extensions, that the richest of the rich get a bunch of 
tax breaks or get them extended so that, even when they die, they can 
just pass on massive amounts of money to their heirs and never have to 
do anything to help the society that helped them make all that money in 
the first place. I'm not talking about taking it all. I'm talking about 
something called the estate tax, which is something that every society 
has, and it just makes sense.
  You have heard, Mr. Speaker, a lot of things that just ain't so--
aren't true--and are just invented.
  We see our Republican colleagues saying very piously, Oh, we've got 
to make sure we don't pass on this deficit to our children and 
grandchildren. Well, they created the deficit. They created the deficit 
through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest people and an Iraq war, 
which never, ever, ever should have been fought. So now what they say 
is the richest of the rich don't have to chime in; they don't have to 
help out; they don't have to give up anything. They just want to take 
it out of the poorest of the poor. Now they want to say, Oh, we have to 
have an adult conversation with our seniors.
  What does that mean, Mr. Speaker? That's insulting to me.
  To say to a 65-year-old person who has worked his whole life, who 
maybe has pain in his back because of the hard work he has done and 
tell him, We have to have an adult conversation, I hope every senior in 
this country turns to the Republican Caucus and says, Sonny, young 
lady, don't you tell me about having an adult conversation. I'm the 
adult around here.
  Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that an adult conversation means 
you're going to try to cut benefits for people who have worked hard and 
have paid into Social Security. That's not fair. That doesn't make any 
sense. By the way, Social Security doesn't contribute to the budget 
deficit. We actually borrow money from Social Security. Social Security 
is something that is the crown jewel of American politics and the crown 
jewel of our Nation. It is one of the finest programs that our country 
has ever seen, and it is something that says that our seniors will not 
live their golden years in abject poverty. It's an income source. It's 
how we honor our people who have been able to stick around and carve a 
path for the rest of us. Now some folks in our Republican Caucus want 
to have an adult conversation with them. That is an absurdity, and I 
think we ought to call it what it is.
  In a few days, we're going to be dealing with the budget. In a few 
days, we're going to deal with the CR. The CR is the continuing 
resolution. The CR really represents a Republican pink slip for 
America.
  The Republican Caucus had their way. They were against regulation. 
They deregulated everything. We said, You know what? Those things, 
those derivatives, they don't need to be regulated at all. They 
promoted this philosophy of no regulation of big business. What it 
resulted in is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression--
the worst one. A financial crisis and housing crisis all over the place 
were

[[Page 1542]]

caused because the people who were supposed to mind the store refused 
to. They figured that, you know, all the folks who work in our Nation's 
economy--the businesspeople, the industry folks--would just always do 
the right thing. The market would solve every question.
  Well, the market didn't solve every question.
  Markets are important things, as people know, and they can be 
extremely helpful, but they need folks to regulate them because there 
are social activities that human beings conduct and engage in. 
Everybody knows, when human beings get together and do something, some 
of them will do the right thing, and some of them will not. That's why 
we have police. The police officer is not for the honest person. He's 
for the person who needs to be watched after. In every market, most 
people do the right thing, and some people do not; but we said no 
regulation, so the cop on the beat was gone, and even the good actors 
in the housing market were getting out-competed because the bad ones 
were willing to do anything, so it was a race to the bottom.
  Then after the Republicans pushed their philosophy of laissez-faire 
economics, it failed us. That's why under President Bush there needed 
to be a massive bailout of Wall Street, because that philosophy failed 
us.
  Now, all of a sudden, these guys act like, well, it's the Democrats' 
fault that the budget deficit is here. President Obama literally helped 
to lead saving this economy. We saved the American auto industry. You 
would think they'd say thank you. We saved Goldman Sachs. We saved all 
these big banks. Now you would think, by the bonuses they're handing 
out to each other, that they would have more appreciation than they've 
shown so far. Literally--literally--President Obama helped save this 
economy and put it back in shape.
  Private job growth is going up. When the Republicans had the 
Presidency and both Houses of Congress, in President Bush's last month 
in Congress, we saw 741,000 jobs lost. We were losing millions of jobs 
under Bush. Then as soon as the Democrats get in, we begin to add jobs 
back on, but we didn't add them on fast enough. Part of the reason is 
we couldn't get any cooperation from the Republican Caucus.
  The fact is now they have gone out there, and they have told the 
American people it's not health care; it's death panels. Oh, it's not 
financial reform; it's the Democrats' bailing out people. Wait a 
minute. The bailout happened in the Bush regime. The Bush White House 
was in operation during that, and they just sort of bamboozled a lot of 
folks.

                              {time}  2150

  The fact is that once they get in, first thing they do is they read 
the Constitution. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. I love our 
Constitution. I'm a lawyer, studied constitutional law, taught it in 
fact; but I can read the Constitution on my own time. I don't need to 
take up floor time for that.
  Okay. So then you'd think they're going to get to getting America 
back to work and doing some jobs after that. Well, guess again. What 
they do next after that is they want to repeal health care. They want 
to repeal seniors' ability to get that doughnut hole closed up. They 
want to repeal seniors' ability to get free preventative care. They 
want to repeal seniors' ability to be able to get some real help when 
it comes to meeting their basic needs in the health care system. They 
want to get rid of the system to squeeze out waste, fraud, and abuse 
out of Medicare so we can make it a program more solvent and to last 
longer.
  They want to repeal all that. They want to repeal health care; but 
you know what, the Senate was never going to go for it and the 
President is not going to go for it. And they knew it and they knew it 
and they knew it, but that didn't stop them, Mr. Speaker. The 
Republican caucus went on ahead with health care repeal anyway, wasting 
hours on the floor when we could have been talking about jobs.
  So, first of all, we take up floor time to read the Constitution, 
which you should do on your own anyway, and then they take up time with 
this repeal effort, which they knew was never going anywhere. We 
haven't dealt with jobs yet. It's February 10 and we haven't seen the 
Republican caucus take up a single measure that would put anyone back 
to work. And you know what, I hope the American people are watching and 
paying attention very closely because they promised a lot, and so far 
they've given absolutely nothing.
  The other day they brought in a measure to try to take money from the 
United Nations. The problem facing the American people is not the 
United Nations. It's no jobs. But our friends in the majority caucus, 
they went out and told the American people some stuff. They took 
advantage of people's pain, and they got themselves elected and then 
the first thing they do is abandon any effort to get the American 
people back to work.
  So this week we've had nothing on jobs. This week we've had nothing 
on jobs at all, and next week they're not just going to do nothing on 
jobs, they're going to start putting in policies that are going to get 
rid of jobs.
  So let's talk about it. The Republican pink slip for America will 
further devastate the economy. The best way to get the economy moving 
is to create jobs. You hear Republicans in the caucus say, well, the 
government doesn't create jobs. Well, tell that to a police officer, 
tell that to a teacher, tell that to a firefighter, tell that to a 
construction worker, tell that to somebody who makes sure that our 
streets and our lights on our streets are in good working order. Of 
course, the government creates jobs. It not only does that, the 
government helps create rules that actually help the private sector 
make jobs. This is just a fact.
  If you want to balance the budget and deal with the deficit, which I 
certainly do, start putting America back to work, but that's not what 
the Republicans are doing.
  What they're doing is they are going after public employees, and they 
are going after programs that provide important and vital services to 
the American people which are provided by public employees. Republicans 
are giving a pink slip to America as they try to go after the public 
employees, as they try to stop and even end up cutting people who 
provide important public services to our country. The American people 
voted for jobs, and all they got was a pink slip.
  The Republican budget cuts, which we are beginning to already hear 
serious rumbles about, mean cuts if you're a nurse, mean cuts if you're 
a teacher, mean cuts if you're a firefighter or a police officer or a 
construction worker; but not only that, not only that, we're talking 
about, folks, more than that. Here's a list in front of my face. I have 
a list of 70 spending cuts to be included in the continuing resolution 
coming up next week if they can ever get around to it. They've been 
having problems with that recently.
  Flood control and coastal emergencies, $30 million, they want to cut 
that. Wait a minute. These are people who make sure that when there are 
floods and when there are coastal emergencies, there is someone who 
will help people who are in peril and in trouble. This is not some 
nameless, faceless program. These are hardworking professionals who 
work on our Nation's coasts to make sure that things are not dangerous. 
Oh, that's $30 million. How many jobs does that cut? I don't know how 
many jobs it cuts, but it cuts $30 million from the budget.
  Energy efficiency and renewable energy: $899 million. $899 million 
cut out of energy efficiency and renewable energy in a time when we 
need to be going toward green jobs. We need to be doing more with 
efficiency. We need to do something. We need to weatherize those old, 
windy homes so we don't need so much energy to heat them up or cool 
them down. In a time when we are driving toward the future, when 
nations around the world are greening themselves, our Republican caucus 
says cut $899 million, that $899 million which employs the American 
public and, of course, some private workers to help provide important 
services.

[[Page 1543]]

  They want to cut the Office of Science by $1.1 billion. Science and 
innovation. Where do the members of the Republican caucus think the 
jobs are going to be? And if you cannot get people to work, then you 
can't get them to pay taxes; and if you can't get them to pay taxes, 
then we're not going to lower the deficit. But still, they want to cut 
the Office of Science $1.1 billion.
  The Internal Revenue Service. They want to cut the Internal Revenue 
Service. Aren't those the guys who actually go get the money to deal 
with the budget deficit, Mr. Speaker? They want to cut the Internal 
Revenue Service $593 million. They want to cut the people who actually 
go get the money to help fill the budgetary holes. That is absolutely 
not logical. Those who don't pay, who don't pay their taxes, they want 
to get rid of the people who go get that revenue.
  International Trade Administration. Now, our country could do much 
more in the area of exports. International Trade Administration helps 
to produce and promote exports. That's us selling things to foreigners 
which makes money for our country which helps us push down the deficit. 
They say cut it. They don't have a vision for growing our economy. They 
have a vision, a dark vision of just cutting it, reducing it, lowering 
it. They have a defensive view of America and not a bold courageous 
view of America.
  The COPS program. The COPS program, community-oriented policing. They 
want to cut it by $600 million. How many of our Nation's brave members 
of law enforcement wearing those blue uniforms, protecting our streets 
all over this country are employed through a COPS grant? Quite a few. 
The Republican caucus says get rid of them.
  What about NASA? Space exploration? So many important things come 
from space exploration, from satellites, all kinds of important things 
that we have learned here and get from NASA, $379 million. Get rid of 
it.
  The EPA, you would think we can keep the program that keeps us 
breathing clean air. Nope, got to get rid of those; and, you know, I 
can go right on down the line.
  What about WIC: women, infants and children? WIC. A poor mom and her 
kids better figure out what they're going to do because the Republican 
caucus wants to cut $758 million out of that program. That's just cold-
hearted and mean right there.
  And let's keep on marching down the list. HUD community development 
block grants which have helped cities all over this country apply funds 
to problems that are facing them and doing it on a flexible basis 
because it's not just for this program or for that you give the city 
block grant money. They decide how they apply those funds. Cut that by 
$530 million.
  LIHEAP contingency fund. This is so people who live in cold northern 
States can have some heat. Now you want to cut that program, so people 
can be in the cold? Literally in the cold and figuratively, too.
  What about the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund? I actually am a 
big fan of clean drinking water, Mr. Speaker, and the Republican caucus 
wants to get rid of that one to the tune of $250 million.
  It goes on and it goes on and it goes on and on and on. Important 
programs that are literally powered by men and women who work for the 
Federal Government, tossed away. It will result in the pain and injury 
to this very fragile economy.
  You know, people listening to this broadcast tonight, Mr. Speaker, 
should know that if I am a public employee and somebody else works for 
a private employer and we both go to the local grocery store and buy 
groceries, the dollars spend the same way. If you cut all these people 
out, you're going to cut consumer demand and you're going to send this 
economy back into recession.
  Thank you for the time, Mr. Speaker.

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