[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2085-2086]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     THE 2011 CONTINUING RESOLUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
California (Ms. Bass) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. BASS of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to 
the reckless spending plan in H.R. 1.
  Mr. Speaker, it has been 43 days since I joined the new Congress, and 
my colleagues across the aisle have not offered one job, let alone 
offered a jobs plan to put Americans back to work. While hardworking 
Americans struggle to keep a roof over their head, food on the table, 
and the heat turned on, my colleagues have not taken one single action 
to create jobs for the unemployed. They have completely abandoned the 
number one issue for the American people right now--jobs and the 
unemployment rate--and in fact, they are blatantly destroying, instead 
of creating, good jobs.
  In fact, the Speaker recently said, ``Over the last 2 years since 
President Obama has taken office, the Federal Government has added 
200,000 new Federal jobs,'' greatly exaggerating, citing a number 10 
times greater than what has actually been reported. He said, ``If some 
of those jobs are lost in the spending cuts, so be it.''
  Mr. Speaker, under the Republican plan, jobs are the target of the 
cuts. For example, the largest cuts ever in history for education 
programs under H.R. 1 would result in more than 26,000 K-12 teachers 
and support staff, 14,000 Head Start teachers, and 7,000 special ed 
teachers all losing their jobs. This is just the education budget 
alone.
  According to the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute, the 
Republican continuing resolution would cost the Nation almost 1 million 
jobs. Included on the majority party cut list are 25,000 new 
construction jobs from infrastructure projects, 1,300 police officers 
by eliminating the COPS program, 2,400 firefighters by terminating 
SAFER grants, and 16,000 private sector construction jobs lost from 
cutting $1.7 billion to the Federal Buildings Fund.
  The spending plan would also slash in half all job training funds--
dollars used to help workers obtain the skills they need to compete in 
the global economy.
  Mr. Speaker, reducing the unemployment rate is the most important 
challenge facing this country. The most promising new source of 
economic growth and job creation is in our public infrastructure 
system, from roads and bridges to broadband and air traffic control 
systems to a new energy grid. I commend President Obama for his 
leadership in crafting a budget proposal for fiscal year 2012, for his 
leadership in crafting this budget proposal that focuses Federal 
dollars on rebuilding America's infrastructure, which USA Today 
describes as ``a massive job creation engine, with plans to generate 
millions of jobs by repairing and expanding highways, bridges, and 
railways.''
  Mr. Speaker, the President's budget addresses the real sources of our 
deficit and makes tough but careful choices needed to reduce the 
deficit. With cuts of $78 billion, President Obama has taken the first 
step in curbing the massive defense budget, and I want to work with my 
colleagues and the President to find additional savings in the defense 
budget by closing permanent bases overseas that no longer serve a 
strategic value.

                              {time}  1030

  For example, I believe we need to examine why we still have over 200 
military bases in Germany 65 years after World War II and many years 
after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The President also makes necessary 
sacrifices to sustain the maximum Pell Grant award for all students by 
eliminating the summer Pell Grant program. These are hard cuts to 
swallow but are necessary.
  The Republican bill, on the other hand, prefers to arbitrarily make 
shortsighted cuts; for example, cutting funding from programs that 
affect women and their children, like $758 million from the WIC program 
and $1 billion from Head Start. The long-term impact of these cuts is 
clear: prohibiting access to family planning services. So guess what 
happens? Then denying food for the child and denying access to 
preschool.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1 recklessly cuts spending at the expense of our 
economic recovery and job creation; nor does the Republican plan put us 
on a sustainable path to deficit reduction.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against this job-cutting, fiscally 
irresponsible spending bill.

[[Page 2086]]



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