[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 2]
[Senate]
[Pages 2174-2175]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             THE SEQUESTER

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, one of the virtues of traveling back home 
is to hear what the people are saying about us. And it isn't good. The 
people are on anxiety overload. The purpose of my remarks is not to 
increase anyone's anxiety but just to tell it the way it is.
  How did we get to a place where we are having mindless, across-the-
board cuts in spending with absolutely no thought? It came about 
because the Republicans refused to increase the debt ceiling. We were 
about to default on our obligations, after raising the debt ceiling 
many times--18 times under Ronald Reagan. And Ronald Reagan warned us 
in those times never to play games with the debt ceiling. Well, the 
Republicans did. They played games with the debt ceiling, and they did 
it because, if you follow what the Republican leader said, his highest 
priority was defeating President Obama. I am sure they thought that 
kind of chaos would lead the way. It didn't happen, clearly. Our 
President was reelected, and he was reelected with the big vote.
  We got into this situation with the sequester because there were 
games

[[Page 2175]]

 being played with the debt ceiling, and as a way to get out of it, we 
did something we thought would never come to pass.
  We said: OK, give us this ability to raise the debt ceiling so we can 
pay our bills and not become a third-world nation and not lose our 
credit rating even more than we have already lost it, and then we will 
look at deficit reduction. If the supercommittee can't come up with a 
deal, we will have these across-the-board cuts.
  No one thought they would happen, and they are happening. And now 
what we hear is, oh, it is really no big deal. Our Republican friends 
are saying it is OK.
  Maybe people watching this in their homes may not be touched by the 
sequester, but let me tell you who will be touched by the sequester, 
and let me make the argument that when these people are touched by it, 
we are all touched by it. This is one Nation under God, and when we 
hurt our people, we get hurt.
  Seventy thousand children will not get Head Start. Is that supposed 
to be good for the country? Ten thousand teacher jobs will be lost. Is 
that supposed to be good for the country? How about 7,200 special ed 
teachers, teaching every day kids who have such a hard time just 
getting dressed in the morning? Is that good for America?
  I would argue that this list is terrible for our country. Maybe you 
don't have a kid in Head Start. I don't. Maybe you don't know a special 
ed teacher. The point is that we are one country, and we do best when 
we help our most vulnerable.
  How about this: 424,000 HIV tests conducted by the Centers for 
Disease Control will no longer happen. Is that good for the country, to 
have HIV-infected people walking around not knowing they have HIV? How 
about 25,000 fewer breast and cervical cancer screenings? Maybe it is 
not your wife or your sister or your mom, but somebody's sister or 
somebody's daughter is not going to find out she has breast cancer. 
Tell me how that is good for this country.
  I am not even talking about the cuts to defense, some of which I 
think we can do but many of which don't make sense. I am just looking 
at the cuts to the most vulnerable people. Four million fewer meals 
will be served to senior citizens. Does that make you proud, 
Republicans? I hope you are proud. Programs such as Meals on Wheels are 
going to be impacted, and 600,000 women and children won't get 
nutrition assistance. There will be 1,000 FBI agents and other law 
enforcement personnel laid off or furloughed, and 1,000 criminal cases 
won't be prosecuted. Is that good for America? Maybe your family wasn't 
the victim of a crime. Maybe it is not your relative who happens to be 
a law enforcement officer. But this is one Nation under God, with 
liberty and justice for all.
  How does it make sense for these cuts to go into effect when all we 
have to do to avert them is reform the Tax Code and take away those 
juicy little tax loopholes companies that ship their jobs overseas get? 
How about asking someone who earns $2 million a year to pay the same 
effective tax rate as their secretary? What kind of a country is this? 
You would rather have these kinds of brutal cuts to the least among us 
than just have a fair Tax Code?
  In the last 40 years only one party balanced the budget, and that 
party is the Democratic Party. Bill Clinton and the Democratic 
Congress--the only party that ever balanced the budget. So spare me the 
lectures from my friends on the other side of the aisle about how they 
are the ones who know how to do it. No, they don't, because when you 
make these mindless cuts and people are furloughed and they have less 
money to spend, they don't go to the corner store and take their family 
for lunch or dinner. They don't spend as they would normally spend, and 
it is a trickle-down effect on this economy. As a matter of fact, Mark 
Zandi, the respected, nonpartisan economist, said it is going to take a 
half a point off economic growth at a time when we are not growing that 
robustly.
  Here is the point. When President Obama inherited the job--because we 
elected him to it--he faced the $1.2 trillion deficit of George W. 
Bush, who had turned the Bill Clinton surplus into raging deficits, and 
the deficits are down now to $850 billion. So don't say we are not 
making progress. A Democratic President is making progress on the 
deficit. But let's do the rest of this deficit cutting wisely, in a 
balanced way. We have cut $1.7 trillion in spending and, yes, $700 
billion in revenue. We have raised taxes on those earning a lot of 
money. But there are a lot more cuts we have made than revenue 
increases we have made.
  So I come to the floor to say this is a self-inflicted wound. And if 
I hear anyone say: It doesn't really affect me, let me tell you that is 
not true because when our kids are hurt, we are hurt. When our health 
care system is hurt and people are walking around with diseases, we are 
all hurt. When our senior citizens don't get the meals, we are all 
hurt. Otherwise, what is the point in having a country if it is 
everyone for themselves? That isn't the greatness of America.
  So I was proud to vote to avert the sequester. We had a majority vote 
before we left here for the weekend, but my Republican friends 
filibustered that. We had over 50 votes to get rid of the sequester, 
and the Republicans filibustered. Enough already. I hope they will come 
to their senses so we can do this deficit reduction in a serious way 
that makes sense.

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