[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 18033]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             PASS A BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Michigan (Mr. Kildee) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, it was just about a year ago right now that 
I and 84 other new Members of Congress arrived in Washington to begin 
our orientation in the process of joining this body; and both Democrats 
and Republicans of that class of 2012, though we come from different 
perspectives and different districts, we received a pretty strong 
message from the electorate in 2012. It was the same message that I 
think many of us heard when we were back home last week for our 
Thanksgiving break. The message was: set aside the hyper-partisanship 
and get about the business of attending to the work of the American 
people.
  So now as we face yet another set of self-inflicted wounds, political 
deadlines that have been set, we hear some rumblings that we may not do 
what we committed to do just a few weeks ago, and that is, put together 
a real budget that is a reflection of the values, the interests, and 
the needs of the American people.
  We have already gone through one government shutdown just this last 
year which cost the American economy $24 billion. We cannot afford to 
let that happen again, and we cannot afford another short-term deal 
that does not provide the stability and the certainty that the private 
sector needs in order to make the kinds of investments that will put 
the American people back to work and get our economy moving again.
  I am glad that there finally was agreement to go to conference on a 
budget, and many of us took that agreement at face value. We took the 
Members who agreed to that and the leadership at their word that it 
would be an effort to put together a budget that is a reflection of the 
needs and values of the American people, a budget that will invest in 
our kids, that will give them the skills they need in order to compete, 
that will invest in infrastructure, that will help industry deliver 
products to market and grow the economy, that will invest in 
manufacturing by passing the Make It In America plan, a plan of some 40 
bills that would reinvigorate our manufacturing sector in this country.
  And we can do it without slashing important programs simply by being 
more rational in terms of how we manage our budget. Cut the big tax 
loopholes for Big Oil and corporations that pay virtually no taxes in 
this country; and for sure, Mr. Speaker, end this mindless sequester, a 
scheme that was designed to be so bad that it would force the two 
parties together around a more rational approach to making decisions 
for the American people.
  But instead of that, it has now been embraced by some in Congress not 
as something to be avoided but as the starting point for the next round 
of cuts to the essential programs that we need in order to drive 
investment and grow our economy. We just cannot afford to continue down 
this path.
  According to the CBO, sequestration is already costing us jobs. Up to 
1.6 million Americans are out of work or will be out of work because of 
these mindless cuts. And we are further cutting our safety net--
programs like SNAP, unemployment, those things that we need in order to 
make sure that we have a floor of decency below which no American 
should ever be allowed to fall in the world's biggest, most powerful 
democracy and economy. It is unacceptable.
  These cuts also hurt our future by slashing key investments in 
research at the NIH, trying to crack the code and solve some of the 
most difficult problems that we have in the diseases that so many 
Americans are struggling with. Yet we set aside that investment in the 
name of partisan politics.
  We have got to get back to work. We have got to get back to the work 
that we were sent here to do because I think the 85 of us that came in 
last year at this time are not really that much different than the rest 
of the Members of this House. We were all sent here with that charge to 
get the business of the American people done. But somewhere along the 
way, partisanship has overcome democracy. We need to set aside this 
hyper-partisanship, get back to the business that we were sent here to 
do, and do the work of the American people.
  Pass a budget. I am calling on my colleagues to do that and to not be 
drawn into what could be another partisan squabble for political 
purposes.

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