[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12677]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   TO HOLD THE PRESIDENT ACCOUNTABLE

  (Mrs. CHRISTENSEN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Today, the Senate will begin debate on the debt 
ceiling agreement. It is being billed as a two-step approach to hold 
President Obama accountable:
  To hold the President accountable or to hamstring his agenda to 
revive and redirect our economy to domestic manufacturing and clean 
energy--or to limit investment in infrastructure, education and health 
care?
  To hold our President accountable or to stifle our meager recovery to 
make it harder to create jobs and lower the unemployment rate?
  To hold our President accountable or to use the forced caps to 
undermine Republicans' main target--the Affordable Care Act? Saying 
there will be no cuts to Medicare services is a sham because cuts to 
Medicare providers will reduce beneficiaries' access to needed care.
  To reduce domestic discretionary spending to the lowest level since 
Eisenhower years? We might as well resign ourselves to giving up our 
place of leadership in the world.
  We do need a clean debt ceiling but with no conditions; and, yes, we 
need to reduce our deficit. I didn't like the suggestion that all of 
the Bush tax cuts expire when I first heard it, but if we end them now, 
we could save $2.5 trillion over the next 10 years.
  Not a bad place to start.

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