[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13253]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE FISCAL PATH FORWARD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, in recent weeks, every 
Member of Congress has heard from a broad range of interests: education 
leaders, State and local officials, defense contractors, small 
businesses, people concerned about the devastating impact of the 
looming sequestration spending cuts. Each of these groups, indeed, all 
of our constituents, deserve an honest accounting. How did we get in 
this predicament, and how can we get out of it in a way that 
accelerates our economic recovery and restores our fiscal health?
  Our situation results from the failure of the so-called 
``supercommittee'' established in the wake of the debt ceiling crisis 
manufactured by Republicans last summer to come up with a deficit 
reduction plan. Instead, we're faced with across-the-board cuts that 
would indiscriminately slash more than 8 percent from every national 
security and domestic account. Cutting with a meat axe instead of a 
scalpel is the most dangerous way imaginable to set fiscal policy. 
These cuts would come on top of the more targeted, but nonetheless 
significant, $917 billion in cuts and spending caps that the 
administration and Congress have already locked in.
  In the case of defense spending, these earlier cuts were a result of 
a careful, strategic review by the administration, and they'll save 
nearly half a trillion dollars over the next 10 years. As for domestic 
investments in education, infrastructure, research, and innovation, 
these cuts have already gone too far, slowing the recovery, and putting 
at risk our ability to compete in the global marketplace.
  The House Republicans' first order of business in the 112th Congress 
was to precipitate an unnecessary, confidence-shaking, government 
shutdown crisis to extract domestic spending cuts. From there, they 
moved to the needless months-long debt ceiling crisis, during much of 
which consumer confidence plummeted, and the economy posted 2011's four 
slowest months of job growth.
  By undermining confidence in the economy and withholding 
countercyclical investments that would boost the recovery and prompt 
future growth, Republicans have provided a case study in how not to 
make macroeconomic policy. Yet they want to do more of the same. 
According to the Economic Policy Institute, House Republicans approved 
a 2013 budget that would put 4.1 million people out of work by cutting 
investments in our future.
  At root, Republicans are proposing a brand of European-style 
austerity, the same policy that has tipped many economies back into 
recession. Interestingly, with sequestration now looming and pressure 
from defense contractors mounting, a substantial portion of the 
Republican caucus on both sides of the Capitol has belatedly become 
aware of the concept of macroeconomics. All of the sudden, they're 
talking macroeconomics. You might call it ``defense Keynesianism,'' the 
belief that only defense spending creates jobs, and that cutting it 
would result in job losses. In fact, the same argument applies equally 
to domestic investments in education and research and infrastructure, a 
truth Republicans have found it convenient to ignore.
  The Republicans, by the way, can only thank themselves for the deep 
defense cuts in sequestration. One can easily imagine an alternative 
sequestration approach, triggering a tax surcharge, in addition to less 
severe cuts to defense and domestic spending. But as was the case 
during these repeated unnecessary crises, Republican dogmatism kept 
revenue off the table.
  It's clear sequestration would devastate our defense, education, 
infrastructure, and research sectors, undermining our economy over the 
near and long term. It would also hobble critical functions from air 
traffic control to meat inspection and Social Security claims 
processing. It can't be resolved in isolation or through half measures. 
Yet Republicans are now proposing staving off the impact of 
sequestration on defense alone, and they pay for it by again targeting 
health care for low-income women and children, food and nutrition 
assistance, and other safety net programs for the poorest Americans, in 
addition to locking in a 2 percent Medicare cut. Their plan would 
victimize the most vulnerable, it would hinder job creation, and 
jeopardize our ability to compete.
  Mr. Speaker, there's a better way. The impending fiscal cliff, which 
includes both sequestration and the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, 
offers an opportunity for all Members of Congress to set the talking 
points aside and act in our country's best interest. I know we can 
chart a course to fiscal balance because we've done it before. In the 
budget agreements of 1990 and 1993, which set the stage for 4 years of 
budget surpluses, the formula was fiscal discipline on all fronts.
  No area of spending can be sacrosanct. We should focus our limited 
dollars on boosting the recovery and making critical investments in our 
future because the most effective means of deficit reduction is a 
growing economy. As in the 1990s, revenue must be part of the solution. 
The President has already proposed a sensible plan allowing the Bush-
era tax breaks to expire on income over $250,000 a year. Extravagant 
tax breaks for various special interests must be ended. The revenue 
raised could be used to pay down the deficit and to help fund the 
investments in education, research, infrastructure, and innovation that 
are critical to economic growth.
  Most Americans agree with this comprehensive approach, but most 
Republicans still hide behind their anti-tax pledges. Their insistence 
that no additional revenue ever be raised, for example, by ending tax 
loopholes for oil companies or asking millionaires to return to their 
Clinton-era tax rates, is still the largest obstacle to a sensible 
budget compromise in Washington. As we approach the fiscal cliff, that 
fever has got to break. We must find our way to the comprehensive 
balanced approach that will enable our country and all of our people to 
prosper.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

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