[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12325-12326]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              DEBT CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. With one simple vote last December, Congress 
precipitated the so-called debt crisis. We voted to extend all of the 
Bush tax cuts at a cost of $4 trillion over 10 years. I voted ``no.''
  So now, the debate comes down to what's more important to the 
American people--Social Security or tax cuts; Medicare or tax cuts; 
jobs or tax cuts. That's what this debate is all about right now--
preserving tax cuts, particularly tax cuts for the wealthy and the 
largest multinational corporations in this country.
  Some are still trying to drag Social Security into this debate. 
Social Security did not cause one penny of this debt. In fact, Social 
Security is the largest owner of Federal debt in the world. They're the 
largest investor in Federal debt. Social Security did not cause this 
problem. Yes, long term, starting in 2037, Social Security is projected 
to only be able to pay 73 to 75 percent of benefits. We can solve that 
simply. Ask all Americans to pay the same percent of their income into 
Social Security.
  Today, if you earn over $106,800, you pay a lower percentage of your 
income into Social Security. Lift that cap. You could lower the tax for 
everybody. All those who earn less than $106,800, they'd get a little 
tax cut. Everybody who earns more than $106,800 would pay the same 
percent of their income in taxes as those who earn less. That's fair. 
It solves Social Security's problems forever.
  Then there are others who say well, it's Medicare. Medicare is the 
thing we've got to kill. The Ryan plan, the Republican plan: kill 
Medicare. Turn it into a voucher program. That's their solution there. 
Future seniors would have a subsidy to go to a government-sponsored 
exchange to buy private health insurance, and the voucher would be far 
less than the cost of health insurance. We don't need to kill Medicare 
to save it or to preserve the tax cuts.
  Medicare, we could do away with the Bush-Republican unpaid-for 
prescription-drug benefit that subsidizes the pharmaceutical and 
insurance industries and instead say Medicare, we'll negotiate lower 
drug prices for all people on that program and give them an at-cost 
benefit. That saves $20 billion a year.
  We could reform the way we buy durable medical equipment and save 
another $20 billion a year. And then we could move on to paying doctors 
for good results rather than volume, saving tens of billions more.
  Yes, we can fix Medicare. We don't need to destroy it to perpetuate 
tax cuts.
  And then tax cuts create jobs. That's the reason we have to maintain 
the tax cuts, according to the Republicans. Tax cuts create jobs. Well, 
we're in the 11th year of the Bush tax cuts, the third year of the 
Obama tax cuts that supposedly are creating jobs. Well, where are the 
jobs? In fact, we just had a really good demonstration of this last 
week.
  Last Friday, all taxes on airline tickets expired. Now, Republicans 
said, well, that will get passed on to the consumers. No. Most of the 
airlines are keeping the money. That's another issue. But did those tax 
cuts create jobs? No. Actually so far they've cost us 94,000 jobs--
4,000 Federal employees. Now, they hate Federal employees, so that 
doesn't matter to them. But 90,000 private-sector construction jobs. 
Building of critical security and safety

[[Page 12326]]

projects on airports all across the country has ground to a halt 
because they stopped us from continuing to collect that fee, that tax 
on people who use the system.
  So tax cuts actually have destroyed 94,000 jobs. But they have 
profited a number of the airlines. One major airline, $4 million extra 
a day because, guess what, they raised their ticket prices to capture 
that money. They didn't refund it. A couple like Alaska have refunded 
it, but most of the airlines, no.

                              {time}  1030

  So we're putting a lie to a lot of their policies here, and the 
biggest core part of their policy is trickle-down economics. It failed 
in the Reagan years and it's failing again now.
  Give billionaires, the job-creators, tax cuts, and they'll create 
jobs for us little people. Well, guess what; no. Maybe they hired 
another pool boy or someone else on the yacht. There are a few jobs 
there. They're now hiring private jets to fly their kids to camp in 
Maine. Yes, there's a job there, but not the jobs that 18 million 
American people need.
  If we restore the taxes on airline tickets, we would put 90,000 
construction workers, private sector workers back to work, and 4,000 
government employees. And if we fully fund our transportation needs in 
this country, we could put another 2.7 to 3.5 million people to work.
  No, they want to cut investment in transportation and infrastructure. 
Bridges are failing. They're falling down. The roads are potholed. 
Transit systems are decrepit, and the Republican answer is: Give people 
back their money and cut spending on those wasteful things like mass 
transit, bridges, and highways.
  And, oh, by the way, under their plan, we lose another 600,000 
private sector jobs on top of the 20 percent unemployment in 
construction.
  It's time to get real around here. Put America back to work. If 
Americans were working, that would solve one-quarter of the deficit 
problem. Stop the tax cut mayhem.

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