[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11873]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     A WEEK IN POLITICAL WONDERLAND

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. We begin another week in political wonderland. The 
Dow falls 100 points at the opening bell. What is it that we should do?
  Well, if we had the knowledge and problem-solving skills of average 
college sophomore economic students, or women in a church study group, 
before the week is out, we would take some simple steps.
  First, we would understand that, in a divided government with real 
economic challenges, no one group is allowed, especially those 
representing a minority opinion, to have their way entirely.
  Then, we would begin by repealing the silly debt ceiling limitation, 
a law that was enacted in 1917 when the United States was about to 
embark upon a borrowing binge in World War I. It was used to look like 
we were fiscally responsible, a charade that we have done dozens of 
times since.
  The fact is, these are debts we've already incurred, and the United 
States will honor them. What sort of theatrics are we going to go 
through until we finally own up?
  Next, we would actually deal with the twin challenges of 
unsustainable spending and tax cuts along with the need to restore our 
economy and compete in a global business environment.
  In an ideal world, my Republican friends would use their opportunity 
over the next 10 weeks to actually show how they would control spending 
in a way that is possible within the political process. In fact, they 
would have two opportunities between now and the election to actually 
shut down the government, if they didn't get their way, to highlight 
that effort.
  We would also deal with a real consensus on things like military 
spending. There's broad agreement across party lines. For example, why 
shouldn't we, more than a half century after the end of World War II, 
22 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, bring those troops 
home from Europe? Of course we can do that, and it's a start of many 
things that would help us restore balance to our military spending.
  Next, we can deal meaningfully with our health care costs. Many parts 
of the United States spend far less money for Medicaid, Medicare than 
the high-spending areas. We know how to do this and, in fact, those 
low-spending, high value areas provide better quality health care. 
Let's use the power of the Health Care Reform Act to accelerate those 
reforms and spread them around America, saving money and improving the 
quality of care.
  Turn to the Tax Code. The American public would support a modest 
reasonable tax reform that would actually raise some revenue by closing 
unjustified tax loopholes and be able to deal with fairness and 
simplicity. More people would actually pay their taxes. We would have 
more revenue, and there would be more confidence in the system.
  We should deal with our infrastructure deficit, something that 
doesn't get as much attention around here as it should. We have a 
serious deficiency in terms of basic infrastructure, transportation, 
sewer, water, trillions of dollars of a deficit that is building, 
undermining our competitiveness in a global economy. We would have 
modest user fees to support needed improvement, together with 
intelligent use of credit that would put hundreds of thousands of 
people to work, strengthening not just the economy, but improving our 
health and our global competitiveness.
  We would reform agricultural spending. Those college students could 
figure out what the experts have told us: that we can actually provide 
more support for America's farmers and ranchers, improve the 
environment, put more resources into nutrition for our children in 
schools, all the time strengthening American agriculture, saving money. 
This isn't rocket science.
  Finally, we would launch a very public American process on how to 
strengthen Social Security; protect that lifeline for our seniors in a 
way that brings people together rather than divides them. Any Rotary 
Club with 10 people, an Internet connection and a sheet of butcher 
paper could come up with one, two or three alternatives that would 
solve the problem over the next 50 years and would be acceptable to the 
American public.
  This doesn't have to be so hard. It doesn't need to risk knocking the 
economy into another tailspin. Done right, we can meet our real 
challenges in a way that puts us on a sustainable economic path. We can 
rebuild and renew America, and unite our country to meet our challenges 
ahead.

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