[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15751-15753]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




        RECENT DISASTERS THAT HAVE BEFALLEN OUR AMERICAN PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Speaker, there are so many things that we need to 
talk about. Important events are spilling upon Americans, just 
cascading upon us. We could spend hours and, indeed, should spend hours 
talking about North Korea. We should and will spend hours talking about 
tax reform, or tax reductions, or serious benefits for the superwealthy 
in America, and we will talk about that. We will debate that.
  But what is on my mind right now are the disasters that have befallen 
our American people. We think about what has happened over the last 11 
months--floods on the East Coast, people forced out of their homes as 
the rivers rose in the Carolinas.
  We think about California, and the massive floods, and the 200,000 
people who were evacuated from their homes in my district.
  We think about the recent hurricanes as they slammed into Houston, 
Florida, the Keys; and Hurricane Maria, as that hurricane devastated 
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. These traumatic disasters are now 
in our memory, but they are also our reality.
  In California today, in my district, and in my colleague Mike 
Thompson's district, thousands of homes have been burned to the ground 
and people have died.
  These disasters are not new to America, and, over the years, we have 
set up a mechanism to deal with them. That mechanism is the 
firefighters across this Nation who respond, the emergency plans that 
have been put in place.
  I know during my period as insurance commissioner in California, I 
would often arrive at these disasters, some of which go back more than 
30 or 40 years, and console people who will have lost their home and 
attempt to deal with their insurance issues. And I would always remind 
those who were in the path of these flames, or hurricanes, or 
tornadoes, to be prepared; that Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared.
  And now, in California, the same message goes out by the first 
responders and, indeed, by myself here on the floor of the House of 
Representatives: Be prepared. Be prepared to evacuate. Think about what 
it is you need to take ahead of time, those important papers, those 
scrapbooks, those photo albums, the dog, the cat; and when the time to 
go arrives, when that message arrives on your cell phone, or on the 
loud speaker from the police car out in front, obey it. Get out. Get 
out because you have already prepared.
  Yes, you should have had that insurance policy that you forgot, that 
flood insurance program. Yes, you should have had it. And all too 
often, we have to rely upon the generosity of charities, and, 
thankfully, they are there. And we also rely upon the Federal, State 
and county governments.
  Today, here in the House of Representatives, and in the Senate, as 
well as in the administration, we are beginning to gear up for yet 
another emergency appropriation to pay for the relief efforts that are 
underway. It is not going to be enough. It may take care of part of 
what occurred in Houston, or in Florida, or in the Keys. It is 
certainly not going to be enough to take care of the devastation in 
Puerto Rico.
  And I know, as the fires continue to rage in California, the 
appropriations that are being discussed, the emergency money for FEMA, 
will not be enough.

[[Page 15752]]

  While we are looking at these disasters and the billions upon 
billions of dollars that will be needed to rebuild the infrastructure, 
to rebuild the schools and hospitals, to pay the bills for the 
emergency work that is going on, this House of Representatives, this 
week, is in the process of trying to figure out how to pass a massive 
tax cut that will take trillions of dollars of revenue away from the 
Federal Government.
  It is estimated anywhere from $2 trillion to $5 trillion, depending 
upon the details, over the next decade, will not be available for the 
next disaster.
  Will it be added to the deficit? Possibly.
  Will those revenue reductions be balanced by cuts to Medicare? Yes. 
It is already being discussed. It is in the Republican budget.
  Will those $2 trillion to $5 trillion reductions in revenue be added 
to the deficit, or will we cut Medicare? They tried to do it in the 
Affordable Care Act, now they are coming back with a budget bill that 
would cause it to happen again--more than $1.5 trillion pulled out of 
the Medicaid program. And so there will be another disaster, a slow-
building disaster of millions of Americans who will not be able to get 
healthcare.
  So, added on top of the burden of rebuilding America, the emergency 
appropriations to pay for the ongoing and past disasters, we need to be 
aware of the inconsistency of thought that is going on here.
  We are looking at an appropriation bill to pass something in the 
range of $15 billion, in addition to the previous $12 billion, which we 
know will not be sufficient to deal with the existing disasters; to say 
nothing of the billions of dollars that are owed to the counties and 
States for disasters going back, at least in California, 10 years, 
where the Federal Government has yet to reimburse the counties and 
State for the obligations that the Federal Government accepted, in some 
cases, a decade ago.

                              {time}  1930

  In the face of all of that, we are going to reduce revenues to the 
Federal Government.
  Who gets the tax breaks?
  Well, here is a fact that the Vice President--excuse me, Mr. Speaker, 
if I might--has suggested in California: that it is the poor that will 
get the tax break.
  Not so. They will get a little, to be sure. The middle class is 
likely to get a tax increase.
  But the real tax break, the top 1 percent get 80 percent of those 
revenue reductions. Eighty percent will flow to the top 1 percent of 
America's wealthy. So if you are concerned about income inequality, you 
better be paying attention.
  One must wonder: What is the logic of what is happening here? What is 
the logic?
  In the face of disasters that have occurred, historically, but more 
recently within the last year--floods in California, floods in the 
Carolinas, hurricanes, fires, tornados in the Midwest--in the face of 
all of that, we are going to massively reduce the ability of the 
Federal Government to respond. It doesn't make much sense to me, 
particularly when the beneficiaries of those tax reductions are the 
superwealthy.
  I think it is 2,500 families in America that would benefit from the 
elimination of the estate tax--2,000-plus families. It is some $6 
billion to $9 billion of revenue lost every year so that 2,000 
superwealthy families don't have to pay an estate tax.
  What is going on here?
  600,000 low-income housing vouchers gone so that they can pass on 
their wealth to the next generation. Income inequality.
  In the face of the disasters, we need to stop for a moment as we 
begin the appropriations process for the FEMA emergency appropriations. 
We need to stop for a moment and consider the way these two things work 
together.
  I was in my district, Davis, California, for an event on Sunday, and 
I had several students--some of whom are my interns--come to me and 
say: What are you going to do about the student loans? There is a lot 
of happy talk around here that we are going to make higher education 
free. It is a great idea.
  It used to be that way when we were building the economy, when we 
knew, if we educated people, we would have a strong, growing economy. 
But tell me, in the face of a $2 trillion to $5 trillion reduction in 
the revenues to the Federal Government so that the wealthy can get 
wealthier, how are we going to ever reduce the cost of education to 
Americans?
  I don't know. Maybe somebody has the answer here. It doesn't seem 
clear to me that that could be happening.
  I am going to introduce a bill again this week--one that I introduced 
in the last session--that is kind of based upon the fact that Americans 
across this Nation are able to refinance their homes at a lower 
interest rate. It is a great idea. I have done it. I suspect many of 
the people who are listening, and certainly many of the Members of 
Congress, have refinanced their home to get a lower interest rate.
  But if you have a student loan that may have been from 5 or 8 years 
ago, or you are about to sign a document this fall for a Federally 
financed student loan, you cannot refinance that.
  Why?
  The Federal Government--there is $1.3 trillion of student loans out 
there. Nearly $900 billion of that $1.3 trillion is owed to the Federal 
Government.
  Why don't we refinance those loans? What if we were to do that? What 
would it mean to the students out there who are paying 5, 6, 7, 8 
percent interest to the Federal Government that is able to go out and 
borrow money for 10 years at 2 percent?
  That is a pretty good margin.
  Even the fat cats on Wall Street can't have a margin that big, but 
the Federal Government does. So these students are paying these high 
interest rates so that the Federal Government can literally profit on 
their backs. That is a fact. Let's allow those students to refinance 
those student loans. Let's just see what happens.
  The Federal Government can borrow money at less than right around 2 
percent--maybe a little less right now; add a percent for management 
fees, 3 percent; reduce all of the student loans, $800 billion, $900 
billion of student loans. The government would go out and borrow it at 
2 percent for 10 years and tell the students and those who are no 
longer in school: We are going to allow you to refinance. Take an 
interest rate that may be half of what you are getting now.
  By the way, why are we charging a fee to these students so that they 
could borrow money? Don't we want them to get an education? Don't we 
want them to be able to improve themselves?
  Yet we require a fee. So let's eliminate the origination fees.
  It is as though the Federal Government were some sharks out there 
dealing with home mortgages. No. We are dealing with students and their 
lives. If we can do this, maybe it is a couple of thousand dollars over 
the life of that loan that that student can then invest in their life 
and in their family.
  These are things that are possible. These are things that we ought to 
be doing. There is just a lot of happy talk around here: Oh, we are 
going to make education free.
  It would be good if we could. We could if we don't cut the Federal 
revenues by $2 trillion to $5 trillion over the next decade. Eliminate 
origination fees. Save low-income borrowing. It is all possible. The 
art of the possible ought to be what we are doing, not the art of 
enhancing those who are so wealthy already.
  I am going to paraphrase a fellow that is pretty important in 
American history. FDR said something like this: The measure of our 
success is not that we do more for those who have much, but, rather, 
that we do for those who have little.
  So what of this tax cut that we are going to spend this week and next 
week, this next month, and, according to our Treasury Secretary, we 
will be done by the end of the year? So what does it mean?
  It means maybe a small tax break for the working men and women of 
America. It means a huge tax benefit for

[[Page 15753]]

those who are already wealthy; the elimination of the estate tax.
  It has been estimated by The New York Times that based upon our 
President's tax returns of a decade ago--by the way, he won't show us 
his present tax returns--that he could benefit to the tune of $1 
billion with his proposed tax program.
  Not bad if you can have it. But is that good public policy?
  I don't think so. I don't think so; not in the face of the needs of 
America. We have enormous defense needs. We have been fighting wars in 
the Middle East for almost three decades now. There are other needs 
that we have for our military.
  You only need to listen to the Secretary of Defense and others as 
they talk about the need to rebuild much of the American military. The 
admiral responsible for the Pacific Theater says that he needs 
something rather important: munitions.
  Munitions. Wow.
  Yes, we have needs. We have students who are paying interest rates 
far higher than is necessary, unable to refinance their Federal student 
loans because the law doesn't allow it. But it is possible. In fact, it 
would make a lot of economic sense. These young men and women might 
actually start a family; might actually be able to buy a home or a car, 
start a new business, start a small business. There are a lot of 
possibilities.
  But the superwealthy need another tax break?
  I don't think so. I don't think so at all. And I don't quite 
understand the happy talk by our leaders of this administration who 
like to say: Not to worry. You are going to get to deduct the first 
$25,000.
  Well, yes. And then what?
  Oh, by the way, there is this 20 percent increase in the bottom tax 
rate, from 10 percent to 12 percent. That is a 20 percent increase. At 
the top tax rate, it goes from 35, unless you are able to maneuver into 
their little scheme where you can actually reduce your tax rate to 15 
percent by being an LLC--a limited liability corporation--or a 
subchapter S corporation.
  Well, if you have the money to hire a good accountant and a lawyer, 
there are a lot of ways you can scheme and scam. And if you are a 
corporation, some of our largest corporations are able to hire the 
lawyers and the accountants and duck their taxes entirely.
  The list is long. The list is actually rather maddening. Apple, GE, 
AT&T, and others, the big ones, their tax rates are down in the zero or 
in the less than 10 percent range, and they want more.
  So Puerto Rico is devastated. My counties in California are facing 
rampaging fires, and perhaps as many as 2,000 homes have already 
burned. There will be another tornado and another hurricane.
  The question for us is: Will there be the money for the Federal 
Government to provide the support that we should do to help Americans 
rebuild?
  That is a fundamental question.
  I know that there is a better way. I know that in the proposal that 
our Republicans have put forth there will be less money for 
infrastructure. I know that if you want good-paying jobs, the 
construction industry has good-paying jobs. I know that for every 
dollar we spend on infrastructure, the economy will grow by $2 or more 
and have a foundation for future economic growth.
  I know that when we rebuild the infrastructure of our communities 
that have been devastated by hurricanes, tornados, floods, and fires, 
that the communities can come back strong and the economies for those 
communities can flourish. I know that it takes a strong American 
Government to make that happen.
  Mr. Speaker, as we enter this week, my heart and thoughts go out to 
those millions of Americans who have been devastated by the hurricanes, 
floods, and fires; those people in my district who have lost their 
homes, and those who have lost their lives.
  I come here to the floor to say: Let us think seriously about what 
our obligation is to Americans, to those who have little, to those who 
have lost everything. What is our obligation to them?
  FDR was correct: The measure of our success is not that we do more 
for those who have much, but, rather, that we do for those who have 
little.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________