[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11252-11254]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    WILL THE DEBT CEILING BE RAISED?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) is 
recognized for the remainder of the hour.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. Let me thank the gentleman from Florida. He 
has certainly awakened a number of issues and Members on his important 
discussion, and I wanted to join in his commentary.
  Mr. Speaker, we will be leaving shortly, and I'm glad that we will be 
returning on Monday for very serious business. Many of us have been in 
meetings today, engaging in solutions rather than distractions as 
relates to the business of the American people. None of us have 
experienced, I believe, the attention to the issue of the budget as 
much as we've had that attention now from our constituents on, will the 
debt ceiling be raised? There has not been a time in these past couple 
of weeks that I've gone home when businesspersons, students, seniors, 
working families have not asked the question: Will we get it done? I am 
an optimist, and I've said to them, Yes, I expect that.
  In fact, I've already gotten it done.
  I voted on the clean debt ceiling raise, or lift, some many weeks 
ago, and that was the right thing to do. The reason is that, over the 
last couple of decades, we have had 60-plus increases in the debt 
ceiling, starting with Ronald Reagan, including Bush I and Bush II, 
President Clinton, and President Carter. It's interesting that, for 
some reason, the tension in this discussion has really gone beyond 
understanding.
  Let me be very clear. We have had such an intense couple of months 
that we have not had the opportunity, really, to engage as Members of 
Congress. Our committees have been fairly tense and rapid. Our 
schedules have been such that we've been here one week and gone the 
next. I know that there are new Members of the 87 members of the 
Republican Conference with whom I would have some things to agree on, 
and I would appreciate having that opportunity, but this is a time now, 
without the opportunity to get to know all of the members of the 
Republican Conference who are new, when we have to get to know each 
other around solving America's problem.
  As I indicated, when a clean debt ceiling was put on the floor of the 
House, many Democrats voted for it. Democrats and Republicans were on 
the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles committee. At one point in the discussion 
with President Obama, the leadership of the Republican House agreed to 
do the larger package of $4 trillion as relates to the debt ceiling: 
revenues and cuts. It makes sense, doesn't it? That's what households 
do. They look at where they can bring down their budgets, but they also 
say, Now what can we do to increase that revenue? People who are 
unemployed want to increase revenue by getting a job, and so I don't 
fully comprehend why it is such a complicated process to participate 
in.
  What makes it difficult is we have leadership in the other body--that 
is Republican--that says their main job is to defeat President Barack 
Obama in 2012. I didn't hear that discussion from Democrats during my 
fellow Texan's tenure as President, George Bush. There were policies 
that we disagreed with, including the Iraq war, but there was no 
concentrated, continuous effort and statement, ``My main job here is to 
bring down President Bush.'' That was not the language that we used.
  So how did we get the leader of the minority in the Senate suggesting 
that his main job is to bring down the President of the United States?
  That's what Mr. and Mrs. Jones--mom and pop--all over America don't 
understand. They don't understand it. We all take a pledge of oath, and 
we all have the same Constitution in our hands. We know that this body 
of lawmakers is looked upon as the most powerful lawmaking body in the 
world. We don't walk around with a lot of big shoulders, but that is 
how we are perceived.
  I happen to have been at the European Union, discussing the 
conditions in Greece and Portugal. They are far different from that in 
the United States. First of all, economists will tell us this country 
is not broke, that it has the ability to fix itself. Let us not cast 
out despair and desperation and frustration to the American people. We 
are Americans--not arrogant, but we are patriots. We can get this done.
  Why is there such a devastating attitude from my friends on the other 
side of the aisle that it is the end of the world--the death knell? 
Those people who are looking forward to job creation and jobs are 
listening to this rancor, this discourse, and are saying to themselves, 
There is no hope.

                              {time}  1340

  There is no hope. I agree with that. There has to be hope for the 
children of this country. There has to be hope for the young men and 
women that are on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan and places 
around the world. There has to be hope. The reason why I know that 
there is hope is because my own industry, the energy industry, just 
created a program called Veterans to Jobs through the energy industry. 
I'm asking them to create one for those who are 18 to 35.
  Businesses are still alive and well. The financial services or the 
banking entity must be involved in providing access to credit for our 
smaller businesses who are creating jobs, but we are alive and well.
  And so I believe what we should do is to go forward with a package 
that is

[[Page 11253]]

reasonable, that lifts the debt ceiling, as we did for everyone else. I 
would vote for a clean debt ceiling, lift it up, and then begin to, 
with great common sense, plan our budget and our cuts. Mark Zandi has 
said that, an economist that has worked for a number of Republicans 
such as John McCain, former Presidential candidate.
  Why are we trying to reinvent the wheel? All economists will say you 
don't make immediate cuts in this fiscal year; you project them out. 
Just like a budget in households, they move out. They do what they're 
going to do for the month of June and then for the month of July and 
then for the month of August. But, no.
  I am particularly sensitive to the fact that only this President, 
only this one, only this one has received the kind of attacks and 
disagreements and inability to work, only this one. Read between the 
lines. What is different about this President that should put him in a 
position that he should not receive the same kind of respectful 
treatment when it is necessary to raise the debt limit in order to pay 
our bills--something required by both statute and the 14th Amendment? 
Why isn't it addressed in the manner?
  It's all right to disagree or agree on the balanced budget amendment. 
It's all right to talk about how we're going to appropriate. In fact, 
in this House, the Republicans are getting their way, gutting and 
cutting everything that we can find. It's all right to have that 
disagreement. That is the give-and-take of democracy. When you win, 
you're the majority; and if we can't find a way to agree together, then 
the majority wins. I understand that, but I do not understand what I 
think is the maligning and the maliciousness of this President. Why is 
he different?
  In my community, that is the question that we raise. In the minority 
community, that is the question that is being raised: Why is this 
President being treated so disrespectfully? Why has the debt limit been 
raised 60 times? Why does the leader of the Senate continually talk 
about his job is to bring the President down, to make sure he is 
unelected? It's 2011. It's not 2012. You need to play those politics in 
2012, not now. And so we can move forward.
  You may disagree with me. I believe it's important to preserve 
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, lifelines for our community. 
And many of us believe that that will not dash the hopes and dreams of 
Americans to make sure that seniors and the disabled and those who are 
retired and those who need these resources, children who need Medicaid, 
it's not unseemly to protect them in the course of our discussion on 
budget cuts. It's not unseemly to protect military families. It's not 
unseemly to be able to provide an increase in salaries for the young, 
if you will, enlisted man or woman who, on some occasions, have been on 
food stamps.
  So I am prepared to do the hard things that we did in 1997 when we 
had a budget resolution crafted by a divided government, if you will, 
and we produced a Children's Health Insurance Program and a balanced 
budget without a balanced budget amendment. There are some fixes that 
we are still living with, such as the physician reimbursement that came 
about. As what happens when you do that, something has to be fixed. 
We're still suffering with the physician reimbursement which came about 
through the 1997 balanced budget. So balancing the budget on a balanced 
budget amendment is not all peaches and cream. It can truly be 
destructive.
  But I am willing, in the long range, with common sense, coming from 
Texas, to look seriously at how we can work together for cuts, but 
revenue enhancers.
  I just had a meeting with industry representatives this morning--one 
of the industries that happens to be in the eye of the storm--and there 
was a consensus saying we are prepared to look broadly at tax reform. 
We would like to give our ideas. I said, You deserve to give your 
ideas, as you deserve to let everyone know that we're in the business 
of creating jobs. But we cannot do this in the background of the 
hostility, of the inappropriate treatment and behavior around President 
Barack Obama.
  So what are we prepared to support? I believe, again, that we can 
come together around a reasoned response, and that reasoned response, 
again, are revenues and cuts. And I believe that we can move this 
before August 2. We only have to be able to convince the new Members 
and the leadership--the point man for the Republicans--that it is 
better to stand as a whole Nation than to bring us down.
  There are those who believe this is what will happen before August 2. 
And, frankly, it is a challenge. We have already lost $150 billion 
right now. Our colleagues need to know that. By all of this fooling 
around, we're losing in the markets $150 billion to $200 billion.
  You want to know where the unemployment came from? We've been 
creating jobs in the private sector, but it's our States that have been 
laying off hundreds and hundreds of thousands upon thousands of public 
workers--fire fighters, police, sanitation, teachers that we will never 
get back for our children. When they enter the fall classes, 35, 40, 
maybe 50 will be in a class. What kind of America is this? And what 
kind of an America would lay off the public sector employees--which, by 
the way, were the doors and opportunities that were opened to minority 
Americans. Large numbers of minorities are public sector employees. You 
are literally killing our community with the high number of unemployed. 
We are at double digits in the African American community.
  I frankly believe that, as an American, I should look out for all 
interests, and that's why I believe we should stop the tomfoolery and 
come together as Americans. And yes, I will have to make sacrifices. We 
have laid out our parameters--mine are Medicare, Medicaid, and Social 
Security--but what can we do together? And what can we do where the 
pain is distributed? And what can we do with the respect given to 
everyone--Speaker, Majority Leader, minority leader, whip, leadership 
in the other body? How can we come as those entities, respect the 
bodies that they represent, and we who are Members of Congress 
represent our constituents in that respectful manner, and most of all, 
respect the Office of the Presidency and, as well, to respect this 
President, President Barack Obama.
  I hope someone will say that what it appears to be is not in fact 
accurate, but historically it seems to be nothing more. And I simply 
close in accounting for that attitude is the very visible debate, and 
in my memory, of the Affordable Care Act. And I have never seen the 
level of depicting of a President of the United States by Americans as 
I have seen during that debate; never seen it. I did not adhere to the 
burning in effigy of any President during the Iraq war--at that point 
it was President Bush. The shoe throwing, I spoke vigorously against 
that. You do not disrespect our President. You agree or you disagree, 
but not in the way that I have seen.
  I simply close this afternoon by saying that it gives me a great 
sense of affection--I'd say pride, for lack of a better word--in what 
this country stands for.

                              {time}  1350

  I believe that America can solve any problem that she puts her mind 
to. The tumultuous sixties is part of my history, a segregated America 
is part of my history, and during that time one felt, could we ever 
come through this? The bloodshed, the hanging, the brutality. But isn't 
it wonderful that a man by the name of Martin King rose along with 
others, too many to name, and carried the mantle of peace, the drum 
major for peace, and he came through all of the contentiousness and all 
of the conflict and raised his voice and said, ``America can do 
better.''
  And a President who I am most proud of by the name of Lyndon Baines 
Johnson used his political astuteness and crossed very difficult lines, 
the Dixiecrats and others in the United States Congress who couldn't 
imagine supporting any manner of civil rights legislation. Isn't that a 
miracle? What we thought we could not do. And that President, who I owe 
such a great debt

[[Page 11254]]

of gratitude, that master of the political process, Lyndon Baines 
Johnson, the creator of the Great Society of which many of us now 
benefit from, Pell Grants and Medicare and housing, that person we call 
the President at that time orchestrated groups that possibly would 
never speak to each other and voted to change and move America forward.
  And so I ask the question: What makes President Obama different? I 
cannot imagine coming this far in my life and that of my children's 
life and that of others to come to a point where we would use the 
uniqueness and the difference of this President to treat him 
differently. If that is not getting in our way, then there is no reason 
that we cannot come together and solve this problem. As some would say, 
this is not rocket science. It is voting for the right approach, and 
that approach is revenue and cuts.
  I will go home to my district and engage with anyone who desires to 
engage in these discussions--we see each other as we walk about and go 
about our duties--and give them the sense of optimism that I have. As I 
do that, I will be in a meeting discussing why the North Forest 
Independent School District, one of the last remaining districts with a 
70 percent plus African American population, has been closed by 
Governor Perry and the Texas Education Agency. Why? Seven thousand 
students and parents now looking as to what is their next step. Why is 
it closed? Is it because you underfunded them and didn't provide them 
with the resources? Is it because we have no interest in getting our 
hands into the mix and trying to help bring up the scores with teachers 
and salaries that can meet the needs of students who are in a property 
poor area?
  I'll go home and deal with that. In the course of dealing with that, 
I'll talk to those parents about hope, about the greatness of this 
Nation, and about the fact that we're going to do our job. And, as 
well, I'll talk to them about the sense of pride and respect we have 
for the President that this Nation elected has come out of the history 
that I am very well aware of. We would hope that the same respect that 
was given to the first Irish Catholic President, the same respect and 
interest that has been given from any President that brings to bear a 
unique and valuable perspective, would be given to President of the 
United States, the American President, our President. He is no 
different from any other President that has served. I beg this House 
and I beg this Congress to treat him with the dignity that the office 
deserves. Get on with our work, get on with solving the problems for 
the American people, a vastly diverse and richly multicultural Nation. 
I am grateful for that.
  God bless this Congress. God bless this President. God bless the 
United States of America. We can do this job.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________