[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 10871-10872]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       DEBT CEILING NEGOTIATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Garamendi) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
  I was just kind of curious about which one of those EPA regulations 
that my colleague was talking about. Perhaps it's the one that would 
prevent the emission of mercury into the air, or arsenic into the 
water. Maybe they want to poison the air and the water. Maybe that's 
what they're looking at. Or the SEC regulation that would bring to heel 
Wall Street and all of its excesses which just about terminated the 
economies of the world. Maybe those are the regulations they don't want 
to see. In any case, what I would really like to talk about here is the 
negotiations that are under way to deal with the looming crisis of the 
debt.
  The President of the United States has said, okay, let's not kick the 
can down the road any further, let's deal with this issue, and has 
proposed a $4 trillion solution. No sooner did he make that proposal 
than our Republican colleagues said, oh, no, we can't do that because 
that will include finally creating in America a fair Tax Code, one in 
which the superwealthy are actually going to get to pay for their share 
of the burden. For example, the hedge fund managers who pay a 15 
percent rate on their earnings, their ordinary income, while the rest 
of us get to pay the full freight, whatever that might be, 35 percent 
for those at the top brackets. But, no, no, we can't deal with that 
problem, so we can't have a $4 trillion solution.
  The President also says, We're not going to kick the can down the 
road. We want to extend the debt limit to at least 2013, to put this 
issue off. But the Republicans don't want to do that. They want to do a 
short term.
  I wonder what's going on here. Talking about cuts, the only cut that 
I've seen thus far defined by our Republican colleagues is to cut 
Medicare. In fact, not just cut it, terminate Medicare, to somehow take 
all of those Americans who are 55 years or younger, and say to them, 
no, when you become 65, you will not have Medicare. We'll give you a 
voucher and you can go out and take your best shot with the private 
insurance sector.
  Good luck. I was an insurance commissioner. I know what those private 
insurance companies will do. They'll deny you benefits, deny you 
coverage, and they will tell the doctor exactly what you might actually 
receive in terms of health care. It doesn't make much sense to me.
  I think we need to support the President in this matter. I think we 
need a balanced approach here, one in which the wealthy finally get to 
pay their fair share, in which the oil companies no longer receive our 
hard-earned tax dollars so that they can have their $4 billion subsidy. 
I think it's time, as we heard earlier from our colleagues, to end the 
wars. If we end the war in Afghanistan, we could over the next 4 or 5 
years have a third of a trillion dollar reduction in our deficit.
  There are many things that can be done, but one thing we will not do 
is to attack Social Security. Social Security and Medicare are the 
foundation of support for all Americans. When they become old, 65 and 
older, they know that they have that benefit available to them.
  Medicare works. Medicare is actually far more efficient than any 
private health insurance system. It has provided seniors across this 
Nation with an opportunity to not be impoverished when they become 65, 
that their health care will be provided to them. It has allowed for the 
extension of their lives. It has reduced the poverty rate. Together 
with Social Security, these are two of the foundations that we have 
promised every American. When they become 65, they will not face 
poverty. They will have a foundation. Not enough to provide all that 
they might want but at least a foundation.
  And so as we go through this whole issue of whether we're going to 
raise the debt limit or not, let us be mindful that we will not do it 
on the backs of the seniors, and we will do it in a balanced way as the 
President has said. We will provide for a fair Tax Code in which the 
superwealthy pay their fair share, in which corporations are no longer 
able to evade taxes, in which the oil companies no longer will receive 
our hard-earned tax dollars so that

[[Page 10872]]

they can have even greater profits, and let us be mindful that the oil 
industry itself over the last 10 years, the top five oil companies have 
had over a trillion dollars of profits. It's time to bring back those 
subsidies and to balance our budget. We can do these things.

                          ____________________