[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1773]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       JUMP-STARTING THE ECONOMY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POCAN. Madam Speaker, as a lifelong Wisconsinite and a proud 
resident of Madison for the last 30 years, I am deeply humbled and 
honored to represent Wisconsin's Second District in the House of 
Representatives. The Second District is home to a world-class 
university, innovative small businessowners, and hardworking dairy 
farmers and cheese makers who produce the best milk and cheese you can 
find.
  I ran for Congress because I wanted to ensure these voices, the 
voices of south central Wisconsin, are heard, respected and represented 
in Washington. And I am committed to serving their needs by working 
with my colleagues--all of my colleagues--regardless of party 
affiliation. But I hate to say it, Madam Speaker, right now the people 
of Wisconsin's Second District are frustrated, and I understand why. 
When I went home last week, I met with people from all kinds of 
professions and all walks of life, and their concerns could not have 
been more different from what we talk about right here in Washington. 
What they care about is what all families care about: how can they make 
a living so they can pay their bills, provide for their loved ones, and 
create opportunities for their children.
  They don't care about political finger-pointing. They care about how 
we in Congress can support an environment where businesses can attract 
more buyers for their products, hire more workers, and increase wages; 
in other words, how do we grow the economy.
  What I told them, and what I'll repeat here today, is that the 
sequester and its irresponsible, indiscriminate and across-the-board 
spending cuts is the exact opposite of what we need to be doing right 
now to grow our economy. Taken as a whole, these spending cuts 
represent a harsh austerity policy that I fear could only move our 
country backwards.
  We've seen in Europe the severe effects austerity policies have had 
on fragile economies working their way back from recessions. Four years 
after the global economic crisis, our friends across the ocean are at 
risk of a triple-dip recession. Unemployment is climbing; and even with 
these massive spending cuts, countries have seen their debt loads 
increase. Is this the model we want to follow in our country?
  Madam Speaker, we must remember that the biggest threat to our long-
term economic security is not the deficit. It's the economy. It's a 
lack of jobs, and it's about the more than 12 million people who are 
unemployed in this country.
  I own a printing shop in Wisconsin; and as a small businessowner, I 
can tell you that it's about the lack of access to capital because of 
economic uncertainty, it's about a lack of consumer confidence, and 
it's about people needing to get back to work. These are the issues we 
need to address, not austerity; and we are not going to create jobs or 
help spur spending by gutting critical government programs without any 
thought to the consequences. To people in Wisconsin, that's just 
politics as usual.
  We need to change the conversation right here in Washington. We need 
to be talking about what people are talking about in Beloit, in 
Baraboo, and in Sun Prairie. Instead of asking about how much we can 
cut, we need to be asking ourselves how we can jump-start the economy, 
how we can invest in our future, and how we can support our local small 
businessowners who are the backbone of our communities. That's how 
we'll fix the economy.
  We need to support education, infrastructure projects, research and 
development, and new industries such as green energy that will help 
lead to job growth and bring our unemployment rate down. And by growing 
the economy, we will fix our fiscal problems.
  Now, that doesn't mean I don't see a place for responsible restraint. 
As the former chair of the Joint Finance Committee in Wisconsin, I 
understand that when you put together a budget, tough decisions have to 
be made, and you can stay up all night agonizing over the smallest 
details, the tiniest programs, because these programs make a difference 
in people's lives. It's a lot of work, and it should be, because our 
budget priorities have a direct effect on our middle class families and 
on long-term economic growth. But the sequester trades in the tough 
work and replaces it with massive, indiscriminate, and irresponsible 
spending cuts. It's like taking a meat cleaver to the budget instead of 
a scalpel.
  It could cost 750,000 jobs nationwide, including 36,000 jobs right in 
Wisconsin. It could mean 70,000 students across the country, and 1,000 
in my State, would see their Head Start services eliminated this year, 
and it would mean $900 million less in loan guarantees to small 
businessowners nationwide, including in Wisconsin.
  Now, I'm a cosponsor of a plan put forward by Representative Van 
Hollen that would avert these disastrous spending cuts and replace them 
with a balanced approach that promotes economic growth while 
responsibly reducing the deficit. I strongly urge my colleagues to come 
to the table, stop this irresponsible sequester, and then refocus our 
efforts.
  The time has come to stop talking about harmful spending cuts and 
start talking about getting the people of Wisconsin and of America back 
to work. We need less austerity and more prosperity. We don't have time 
to waste.

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