[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3567]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            NOT JUST NUMBERS

  Mr. REID. Madam President, on the news on the way to work this 
morning, I heard one Republican Senator who is part of the Republican 
leadership say he thought all Republicans would vote for H.R. 1, this 
job-killing--that isn't what he said, it is what I say--this job-
killing, shortsighted bill. He said they would do it because of the 
numbers involved in it--the numbers involved in it. I tell everyone, my 
friends on the Republican side, the American people are not as 
concerned about the numbers as what is in this bill, with those mean-
spirited riders.
  We are concerned about the numbers. The American people are concerned 
about the numbers. The President of the United States and Democratic 
Senators have agreed to address the numbers, and we will do that. We 
have done it in our alternative here today.
  But this is not a bill about numbers. H.R. 1 is a mean-spirited bill 
that will cut the heart out of the recovery we have in America today. 
It goes after little children, poor little boys and girls who want to 
learn--they don't know what they want, but we want them to learn to 
read, to be able to learn. Head Start is a program that has been 
successful. We have a lot of poor people in Nevada. I wish we didn't, 
but we do. Head Start has been great for our communities. The National 
Institutes of Health, they are whacking that--the National Science 
Foundation. Our clean energy jobs, they are going after them. National 
laboratories. Where is the spirit of Pete Domenici--Pete Domenici, a 
long-time Republican Senator. He and I worked as chair and ranking 
member of that Energy and Water Subcommittee on Appropriations, trying 
to fund those very important labs. The labs do lots of good. Among 
others, they make our country's nuclear weapons safe and reliable. What 
has been done with this meat axe approach that they say is only numbers 
is not good for our country. I have heard my friend, the assistant 
majority leader, talk about what is happening to one of the smaller 
laboratories, Argonne, in Illinois. We have big ones at Livermore, at 
Sandia, Los Alamos, and other labs around the country that are some of 
the places where there is pure science--some of the few places in 
America today where we have pure science. What H.R. 1 has done, what 
they are trying to do to education in our country--not only Head 
Start--but how it affects education generally is unacceptable.
  What this bill would do if it were to pass--it is not numbers; it is 
not numbers only. What does it do to our port security? The Presiding 
Officer is from the State of New York. Every day there are evil people 
trying to do damage to the people and the State of New York in the 
ports. Our airport security. We still have to look out for these bad 
people, the shoe bombers and other people who come up with all of these 
very bad ways to try to harm America.
  So for someone over here on the other side to say they are looking at 
H.R. 1 and they will probably all vote for it because of the numbers--
how insulting to the American people.

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