[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14611-14612]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       LET'S PASS A SOUND BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New 
York (Mr. Tonko) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. TONKO. Mr. Speaker, I have one basic question: What are we doing 
here? I mean just that. What are we really doing here?
  Each day we talk about problems, problems, the real problems that 
face our country that are fixable with compromise and clearheaded 
solutions. Each day, this Chamber does nothing to overcome those 
challenges in front of us. Each day, the American people think we can't 
sink any lower or be any more dysfunctional.
  Right now, there's talk about passing a 1-week budget to simply 
provide the time for elected officials--people charged with running the 
government of this great Nation of ours--to get along for enough time 
to pass yet another extension. Say it isn't so. One week. There are 
lemonade stands with better budgeting practices than what we have seen 
in this body in the past 2 years.
  This is unacceptable, this is absurd, and it certainly is not what 
the American people deserve from any layer of government, especially 
their Federal Government. Let's get this done. Let's pass a budget, a 
budget that cuts where we can, that invests where we must, that grows 
jobs, and ends the painful consequences of sequestration.
  The absolute misery here is that all of this dysfunction could have 
been avoided. We could have avoided the reach to yet another kicking of 
the can down the road if we would come together at the conference table 
and do a real budget. We could reach through a budget process; we could 
reach to regular order.
  With many of my colleagues, I have urged them that the leadership in 
the House resort to naming the panelists who will sit at that 
conference table to realize regular order through a budget process, a 
real budget process. That request has been turned down time and time 
again. The statements made in the past were, Well, the Senate hasn't 
moved on a budget, or We haven't heard from this entity about what 
their plans are.
  Well, the truth be told, this year, the United States Senate passed 
its version of a budget. This House passed its version of a budget. The 
President and his administration have advanced their fiscal blueprint 
for the coming fiscal year.

                              {time}  1015

  The entities have spoken. The process needs to be addressed and 
respected. We need to bring those panelists to the conference table--
those who will represent Republicans and Democrats in the House of 
Representatives and in the United States Senate--to come to terms, to 
develop the compromise in the spirit by which our Founding Parents 
developed this wonderful blueprint of a Republic, guided by the 
democracy.
  Why are we rejecting that opportunity?
  A sound budget could allow us to escape the terrible consequences of 
sequestration.
  I have witnessed what that sequestration has meant in my own 
district. During our 5\1/2\-week district work period, I visited with 
many of those Head Start programs, with Early Intervention, with 
nutrition programs, with food banks that address the nutrition needs of 
the people of this great Nation. I have worked with the small business 
community to understand more fully what the impact of sequestration 
might mean to them--cuts to research, to programs that have furloughed 
my Federal employees if given

[[Page 14612]]

the opportunity to serve this Nation through their workforce.
  All of that consequential damage could be avoided if we would resort 
to the soundness of the tool called the ``budget.'' The sequestration 
issue is painful. It's a hidden attack. It's mindless, thoughtless, and 
it has pervaded itself into the fabric of our communities--into the 
quality of life of the people who place within us the trust to be their 
voice in Washington.
  So we need to do better than this paralysis that has stalled the 
process that finds us at the midnight hour, searching for answers in 
the most unusual format that will resort to yet another kicking of the 
can down the road, that would use the smoke and mirrors to balance a 
budget for some uncertain period of time, that doesn't provide the 
predictability to the business community or to the working families of 
this Nation. The partnership with their government should be real. It 
should be stated in terms that allow for the respect of businesses to 
invest and hire and be productive.
  We have had a plan in this House coming from the Democrats. 
Representative Van Hollen has introduced a plan that will reduce the 
deficit in greater fashion and will avoid the painful consequences of 
sequestration.

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