Providing for consideration of the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 44) making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2011, and for other purposes.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 115 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend from Colorado (Mr. Polis), pending which time I yield myself such time as I may consume.

During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, House Resolution 115 provides a closed rule for consideration of H.J. Res. 44. This bill would fund the government through March 18 and reduce federal spending by $4 billion over the remainder of the fiscal year. The measure cuts $2.7 billion in earmarks from Energy and Water, Labor-HHS, Transportation-HUD, Homeland Security, and Legislative Branch appropriations, but most importantly, this measure averts a government shutdown and allows the Senate time to continue to consider H.R. 1, the bill that we successfully passed in this Chamber just 1 week ago.

Mr. Speaker, on that bill, we had roughly 50 hours of debate from both sides of the aisle, debate that ran late into the night that allowed the House to work its will for the first time in a long time. And the end result was that continuing resolution, H.R. 1, that now sits idly in the Senate.

This resolution today, this rule today, which I urge Members to strongly support, will allow for the 2-week extension of Federal funding to allow the

Senate time to seriously consider this bill, again, H.R. 1, the first bill in a long time on which the House has had a chance to work its will.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to

say to my friend, I could not agree with him more. We must ask ourselves: How did we get here? How did we get here? I have been on the job for 60 days, but the fiscal year began back on October 1 of 2010. How did we get here?

We got here because the work of the people's House didn't get done last year, and I regret that. Candidly, I'm not sure how. I hear so many folks talk about the partisanship in the Congress and the partisanship in Washington, DC, and people can't get things done because of the partisanship. But, of course, last year Democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. And yet we still sit here today without a budget, without the appropriations that the speaker knows we need for the government to continue its operations.

How did we get here? I don't know. But I know this: Nobody elected me in November to come up here and point the finger of blame. They elected me to work with my friend to clean up this mess. Irrespective of how we got here, we have to move forward.

I have to say, because I was at home for the past week with my constituents working through these very same issues we are talking about today, the question I got over and over and over again is: Rob, that is a great start, but let's do more. That's a great start, but let's do more.

You know, getting started is what is hard. It is hard to get started. Over and over again we have heard our friends on both sides of the aisle say: You know, this program, it can be fixed. It can be fixed.

I wonder if we will have a day here where we can start from a blank sheet, just a blank sheet, and say: What is it that is worth borrowing from our children for? What is it that is worth increasing our children's credit card balance for? What is it that is worth mortgaging our children's future for?

Let me just say to my friend, because I know he has a great passion for education, and it is a passion I very much respect, I have the great fortune of coming from the part of the world called Gwinnett County, Georgia. And Gwinnett County was the recipient of the Broad Prize for the single best urban education school district in America. We made it as a finalist 2 years ago, but last year we won. And we won in spite of Federal Government intervention--not because of it, in spite of it. We won because, as a community, we got together back in 1996 and said there is a better way. What can we do to enable our children to succeed better?

We were doing standardized testing in Gwinnett County before standardized testing was in vogue because we knew we had to have a way to measure. We knew we had to have a way to sort out what works and what doesn't. Well, folks, we need some of that standardized testing here on Capitol Hill: What works and what doesn't?

And there are a lot of things that aren't working. Not only do we need to get the bad out of the budget, we've got to decide that we're going to choose between good and good, between good and good because every school group I spoke to over our district workweek is a school group from whose future we are borrowing, whose future we are mortgaging over and over and over again.

It has to be said that the House worked its will in an unprecedented fashion, an unprecedented fashion. Mr. Speaker, I don't say that lightly. I mean never, never before in modern times has the House worked its will on a continuing appropriations bill the way it did last week. Again, I don't care whose fault it is. I don't care why we couldn't get it done last October. I don't care why we couldn't get it done in November. I don't care why we couldn't get it done in December. What I care about is we have an opportunity to get it done, and we did that last week.

The House worked its will, and we had some winners and we had some losers. I voted for a number of amendments that failed. I didn't get everything that I wanted in that bill. I know my friend from Colorado didn't get everything he wanted in that bill, but the House worked its will, Mr. Speaker, with unprecedented openness, and H.R. 1 was the result.

Well, I asked my staff to call over to the Senate before I came down here. I wanted to find out exactly how much debate the Senate had been putting in on H.R. 1. Of course, we debated it for almost 50 hours. We went through the night on a couple of nights. We wanted to make sure that the entire House had an opportunity to be involved. My staff tells me, Mr. Speaker, not a moment. Not a moment.

I hear the sense of urgency from my friend from Colorado that we have to take action; this is no way to run a government. I think he is right. I think cleaning up this mess means passing a single continuing resolution that gets us through to the end of the fiscal year. For Pete's sake, the Appropriations Committee is already taking testimony to try to get us into the 2012 budget cycle. This is leftover work that simply didn't get done last Congress. Not one second has been spent on the Senate side, Mr. Speaker, from what my staff tells me. Not one second has been spent considering a bill on which the entire United States House of Representatives worked its will; a bill that was the only open process that this House has seen on a continuing resolution; a bill that allowed Members from both sides of the aisle to come down here to the House floor and represent their constituents back home by doing exactly what my friend from Colorado is suggesting--trying to make good cuts, trying to make those things, present those things on the House floor that make the most sense to folks back home.

Well, Mr. Speaker, we are where we are. No one wants the Senate to act expeditiously on the work of the people's House more than I do. But given that not one moment has been dedicated to that, we have to come down here and fund the government one more time. It is the responsible thing to do. It is the responsible thing to do.

The better thing to do would be to act on H.R. 1, which the House passed last week with the support of Members in this body. But now, we have to come down here and extend for 2 weeks to give us time to finish those negotiations with the Senate side. And if that is not enough time, I suspect we will be back down here again. My friend from Colorado and I will be back down here in this well doing this same thing.

But it is no way to run the government, Mr. Speaker. It is no way to run the government. This is just what we have to do while we wait on the Senate to take up that bill on which the House worked its will last week.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, to put these cuts in perspective, because, again, we have to get started somewhere, there is not going to be a speaker who stands up here today who doesn't speak out in favor of fiscal restraint. The questions are: When do we start? How much do we do?

Compare the bill that's before us today, which is the continuing resolution to fund the government for 2 weeks and is adding about $4 billion in cuts, to the bill we passed last week, which had $100 billion of cuts in it. Now put that $100 billion of cuts in perspective.

Let's take the average American family who has to go out and buy groceries. That family has a 31-day grocery bill. Knowing that you've got to go out and buy 31 days' worth of groceries, what we're asking of the American people is to cut 1 day out. We're going to tell you now that we're going to cut 1 day out, and we need you to stretch your 30- days' worth of groceries into 31.

Mr. Speaker, that doesn't seem that draconian. In fact, it doesn't seem draconian at all. It seems like what American families are doing over and over and over again in the recession that we've been battling.

When we talk about these jobs numbers, these are the same jobs numbers about which folks said, If only you'll put your children in debt to the tune of another $1.5 trillion, we'll get unemployment down under 8 percent. It's the same economist who said, Well, it didn't work the first year, but what if we do it the second year? If we put you in debt to the tune of $1.6 trillion, in addition to the 1.5, in addition to the 1.3 the year before, then we're going to get unemployment back down under 8 percent.

Those jobs didn't materialize because the Federal Government can't create jobs. We can destroy jobs--we can and we do--but we can't create jobs. Our young entrepreneurs create those jobs. The business owners in our communities create those jobs. We destroy jobs, but we cannot create jobs. That is what this continuing resolution is a recognition of, Mr. Speaker: that the government can absolutely get out of the way. We're not going to hear today about the numbers of jobs that will be lost if the EPA continues to classify carbon dioxide as a pollutant and hamstrings the American economy in a way that no other economy on this planet is hamstrung. We're not going to hear those jobs numbers. H.R. 1 would solve that, and we have to get started somewhere.

Mr. Speaker, I take no pride of authorship. I'm just a participant in H.R. 1 as it passed the House, as the House worked its will, as Democratic amendments passed and as Republican amendments passed. I wish we'd been governing the right way and that this had been done back on October 1. We passed that continuing resolution, and it's unclear to me why there was no open process there. We passed the second one in December and then the third one in December.

Again, the openness that this House has seen in this 112th Congress is absolutely unprecedented.

Now, I know my friend from Colorado is a strong supporter of CBO and of the work that CBO does. I couldn't agree with him more. Then when Mr. Dicks came before the committee last night with an amendment that would cut even more, as someone who believes we need to cut more, I was incredibly enthusiastic about that. My understanding was that CBO hadn't had a chance to score that amendment, that there was no scoring to be had, and so we couldn't tell whether or not this was going to cut or whether or not this was going to add or how the spend rates were going to sort themselves out, because it came at the very last minute.

Yet what didn't come at the last minute was the opportunity for the minority to offer a substitute. The Speaker reached out to the minority to say if you were interested in offering the same continuing resolution that you had offered before, which was going to freeze funding--and we've heard that a lot. Let's just freeze things. We don't want to cut anything, and we don't want to be draconian--the majority would have absolutely made that in order.

Again, the House could work its will, but my understanding is that that offer was turned down and that folks were not interested in offering that substitute. I would have been a proud ``no'' vote on that substitute, but I still believe, as the gentleman from Colorado said, openness in the process yields a better result.

This brings me full circle, Mr. Speaker, to H.R. 1, which is the single continuing resolution that has had more openness in the process than any other continuing resolution this House has ever considered. It led to the best process, and it led to the best outcome. This is the bill that sits in the United States Senate today, that could be acted on today, that would fund the government and provide the certainty that we need today through the end of the fiscal year, which is on September 30.

So when we're talking about certainty, and I absolutely believe that our economy needs certainty, it is the government that's creating the uncertainty. We are creating the uncertainty. We have historically created the uncertainty. We have an opportunity with H.R. 1 to eliminate that uncertainty for the rest of the fiscal year and to get back to doing what this House always should have been doing, which is considering appropriations bills under regular order.

Candidly, I hope my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle are throwing down that gauntlet today. I hope they're saying, You know, Rob, it's not easy to lead. It's not easy to move bills through regular order.

I want that opportunity to try. I want an opportunity to do it the right way. If we can move H.R. 1 through the Senate and onto the President's desk, we can then come together with the same kind of open process that we began 2 weeks ago to consider all of the appropriations bills and to make the priorities that this House chooses to make priorities, not the last Congress, not two Congresses ago, not President Obama in his first year, not President Bush in his last term--but this House today, together. What are our priorities?

As soon as we move this continuing resolution behind us, Mr. Speaker, we can begin to focus on those priorities, which is where the true work of the House is intended to be.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I associate myself with the gentleman from New Jersey's comments. We absolutely have to work together. It's a great source of pride for me that I've only been on the job 60 days and we've already seen more working together than this House has allowed in the past 4 years combined. Understand that. Understand that as we're working on this appropriations bill, as we're working through this appropriations process, that 2 weeks ago you saw more openness and working together in this Chamber--right here, right here in the people's House--more working together than you had seen in the previous 4 years combined.

Can we do more? I say to the gentleman from New Jersey, I think we can, and I look forward to being a partner and making that happen. But to say that what is sitting on the desk in the Senate is the product of take-it-or-leave-it legislating could not be further from the truth. It's the furthest from take-it-or-leave-it legislating that the House has seen in 4 years. Arguably, it's the furthest thing from take-it-or- leave-it legislating that the House has seen on continuing appropriations bills in modern time.

So when we talk about where we are and where we're going, we have to ask that question of, why are we characterizing this as a process that's broken? Why are we characterizing H.R. 1 as something that doesn't work? Why isn't H.R. 1 the very best, the very best, given the makeup of this House, given our collective intellect and wisdom? Why isn't H.R. 1 the very best that we can do? Because when the process is open and everyone gets to participate, it ought to bring out our very best.

And I'll say to the gentleman from New Jersey, he has some of the lowest gas prices in the country. I enjoy traveling through his great State. Every time I go through, not only do I get full-service gasoline, I get it for the best prices in the country.

Gas prices are up 25 cents a gallon in Gwinnett County, where I come from; 25 cents a gallon in the past 10 days. We have economic crises in this country; we have economic challenges in this country; but spending more government resources is not the answer. We have about a $15 trillion economy. Even with a $3.5 trillion Federal budget, the Federal player is small, small--8.5 cents of every dollar in education in Georgia comes from the Federal Government. The rest comes from exactly where you expect it to come from, local communities and State governments. We have to get the government out of the way.

And if you're worried about uncertainty, as I am, if you share our concern about uncertainty, then let's pass H.R. 1. Let's be done. Let's be done with this 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 12 weeks. Let's get us through the end of the year. Let's finish the job that we should have gotten done last year. Let's put it behind us, and let's start that new open process again. And it's one that I look forward to joining my colleagues in.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds only to say that's why we're here today, as the gentleman knows, so that there is no government shutdown. And I could not be more proud that we're here taking that responsibility exactly as seriously as it is.

It's very difficult to have a conversation about jobs when we have carbon regs coming down the pipe that will destroy jobs and we have financial regulations coming down the pipe that will destroy jobs and we have health care regs coming down the pipe that will destroy jobs over and over again. My folks are saying ``enough.''

With that, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the chairman of the Rules Committee, the gentleman that I give credit to for giving us the most open process on a continuing resolution that we've seen in modern times.

I yield to the gentleman from Washington.

And we could not have done it without your support.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds just to invite my friend from New Jersey to join me on H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act. Not only will it create jobs in this country, it's the only bill in Congress that will eliminate every single corporate piece of welfare, loophole, tax exception, credit, so on and so on, because none of them need a nickel of it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Given that it eliminates the payroll tax, which is the largest tax 80 percent of American families pay----

Twenty-three percent.

Less than what you're paying now.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I am the final speaker.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Mr. Speaker, we are here today for one reason and one reason only, and that's to provide ample time for the Senate to consider H.R. 1, to keep the doors of the Federal Government open, to keep important services being dispensed, to keep the government of America on track for 2 more weeks while the Senate takes time.

I will associate myself with the gentleman from Colorado when he says we can't always get what we want. I sadly haven't gotten what I wanted so far, and I am prepared to get even less of what I want going forward. But I don't mind telling you I don't know how we are going to get to what any of us want if folks don't even start considering the bill.

This was our very best shot. It was our very best work product. Whether you love it or whether you hate it, it was the most openly produced work product in continuing resolution history. And there it sits, and there it sits, almost 10 days now with no advancement whatsoever.

Mr. Speaker, I hope these 2 weeks are enough. I recognize the caution that my friend from Colorado suggests that we may be back here one more time doing this again. I hope this is the last time that we will be here.

But I know this: I know we can't continue to mortgage our children's future while we wait. I know we can't fiddle while Rome burns. So we have passed, we have presented this continuing resolution with cuts there to prevent our children's future from continuing to be mortgaged.

As I spoke with school groups across the district last week--and I share my friend from Colorado's passion for education--I asked them to turn on C-SPAN this week, because I said it doesn't matter who stands up, whether they stand up on the left or the right, or whether they speak from the well or from the leadership table, they will tell you that the reason they are there

today is for you, is for you, the children. It's for your future that they are there on the floor of that House.

I believe that. I believe that in everyone's heart they are here to make sure that tomorrow's generation does better than today's generation. I would just say, Mr. Speaker, that if there are schoolchildren out there watching today, perhaps they will pick up the phone and they will give us a call and let us know exactly which one of us is on the right track, because I know it's all about them that we do what we do.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, the CR disproportionately cuts education, especially literacy efforts. David Brooks, not known as a left-wing journalist, writes in the New York Times column today: ``If you look across the country, you see education financing getting sliced often in the most thoughtless and destructive ways. In Washington, the Republicans who designed the cuts for this fiscal year seem to have done no serious policy evaluation.''

Last night, I asked the Rules Committee to make in order an amendment restoring education cuts. The amendment cut $1 billion from the Census in money that wasn't needed, applying most of that to offset education spending, and the remainder went to further reducing the deficit below the levels in the CR before us. The Rules Committee chose not to make that amendment in order, and therefore I oppose the rule.

But to talk to the gentleman, I spent 8 years on the staff of the other body, and this is my 35th year in the House of Representatives. Nobody ever gets everything they want: This is a process where the House passes a bill, it goes to the Senate, and then we have a conference committee or the Senate sends the bill back to us. Both sides meet and work out their differences. There is give and take, there is compromise, and that is the way this process works.

And I also want to say to the gentleman, and to your side, remember it was the Democratic Congress and the House Senate and Mr. Obama signing the $41 billion cut from the Obama FY11 budget. It was the Democrats that did it. We had one Republican vote. And I just want to remind you, that was done in December in a lame duck session, which turned out to be a very effective lame duck session; and in that bill we made cuts across the board in all these areas.

So I want to make it clear we are also for deficit reduction, but what I am concerned about--and I know the gentleman is very sincere, I can tell that, I know you believe in every word that you are saying-- but the biggest problem with that is what the effect will be on our economy. Mark Zandi of Moody's says, it will cost us 400,000 jobs in 2011, 700,000 jobs in 2012. Goldman Sachs, who I don't normally quote, they say that this could cut 1.5 to 2 percent of gross domestic product. That could mean the loss of 2.4 million jobs over the next 2 years. That's not what you want to do.

You're trying to reduce the deficit, and the way you reduce the deficit is put people back to work. You get them back to work, and they pay their taxes in and the deficit comes down, the unemployment rate comes down. If you do the wrong thing and make draconian cuts at the same time that the States are cutting $125 billion from their budgets, the impact of those two things--$61 billion and the $125 billion--could have a very devastating effect on the economy and hurt a lot of

programs needlessly because it's going to be counterproductive. I just hope that you think about that.

There isn't any economic theory that I've ever heard of called ``cut and grow.''

So, again, it was the Democratic Congress that cut the $41 billion. And every reputable economist says what you did in H.R. 1 is going to have a negative effect on the economy. And so I hope you all think carefully about what you're about to do.

Again, it takes compromise. You've got to work with the other body to come up with a reasonable solution here, or we're going to have problems with a government shutdown. And you can say whatever you want, but we don't need the government shutting down when we're in two wars, a war in Afghanistan and a war in Iraq, and a global war on terror. We don't need to shut the government down.

Will the gentleman yield?

That was a good process. I appreciate what you all did in having an open rule. I applaud Chairman Rogers and Chairman Dreier. That is the right thing to do. It was appreciated on both sides of the aisle.

I did my best to help.

(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Let me just make a brief comment.

And I do applaud the gentleman from California as chairman of the Rules Committee for giving, for working out that modified open rule.

Just let me, on the point about Mr. Taylor at Stanford, Stanford's a very good school. My son graduated from it, and I'm quite proud of that.

A letter signed by 300 of America's leading economists makes the argument that cutting investments this quickly will undermine growth. Among the original signers from Stanford alone: Kenneth Arrow, Martin Carnoy, Paul David, Mordecai Kurz, Roger Noll, and Gavin Wright.

I just want to say one brief word.

I applaud these modified open rules. And on the regular bills on appropriations, we hope--Mr. Rogers and I have been in contact, we're going to get these bills done in a timely way. And we want open rules, and we want to be able to have these unanimous consent agreements after the bills have been on the floor for a while in order to narrow the amendments and then to get these things done in a timely fashion. And I think that it's going to take the cooperation of all of the Members to be able to do that.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. DICKS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, today we will consider a short-term continuing resolution that will allow the essential functions of our government to continue beyond March 4, the date on which the current continuing resolution will expire.

With no final agreement on the spending levels for the current fiscal year, this measure is necessary in order to avoid a government shutdown, something I believe we should all want to do. I think that 2 weeks is not enough time to reach an agreement on H.R. 1 with the other body, and I'm afraid we're going to be back here doing this again.

Now, when the House approved H.R. 1 earlier this month, despite the overwhelming opposition of the Democratic

Caucus, it was clear to me that gaining agreement on a compromised version of a full-year continuing resolution would be very difficult, at least before the expiration of the current CR. We opposed H.R. 1 because we believe it would have the effect of slamming on the fiscal brakes too abruptly, resulting in higher unemployment and threatening our Nation's economic recovery.

There is no dispute that cutting Federal spending too deeply and too quickly before the economy has fully recovered risks slowing growth and losing jobs. Moody's estimates that H.R. 1 would reduce real growth in 2011 by 0.5 percent, meaning 400,000 fewer jobs in 2011 and 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2012. The Economic Policy Institute projected job losses near 800,000. Goldman Sachs predicts that H.R. 1 would slow economic growth by about 1.5 to 2 percentage points, which translates into the American economy losing up to 2.4 million jobs.

So the recovery of our economy and the reduction of unemployment should be our paramount concern at this time.

I said during the debate on H.R. 1 earlier this month, and I will repeat today, that I believe the approach to deficit reduction that has been adopted by the Republican majority here in the House is far too narrow and too focused on the smallest segment of spending in the budget. It is a risky strategy based on the specious concept of cut and grow, which of course has no basis in sound economic theory.

So where does this leave us? We are now 6 months into the current fiscal year, FY11, and hearings with regard to the fiscal year 2012 budget have begun in both the Budget Committee and the Appropriations Committee.

H.R. 1 is clearly not acceptable to the other body, nor would it be acceptable to the President, whose signature is necessary before any funding bill can become law. What the President has already proposed for the coming year--a budget freeze at last year's level--remains, in my judgment, the best and most effective way to reduce the deficit and to support recovery in major sectors of our economy. In fact, we have already adopted a freeze at FY10 levels in the continuing resolution that we are currently operating under.

Democrats approved the CR in December with only one Republican vote, which represents a reduction of $41 billion from the levels sought by the President in his FY 2011 budget request. This is a significant reduction in the deficit, and a significant part of that came from defense. I want to repeat this. The $41 billion cut from the Obama FY11 budget was passed in a CR by the Democratic House and Democratic Senate and signed into law by the Democratic President with only one Republican vote.

We are now on the verge of an expiring CR, and we are considering another version that extends the time to resolve the differences by only 2 weeks.

I take the chairman at his word that neither he nor his leadership is interested in shutting down the operation of the Federal Government by declaring a stalemate in these appropriations deliberations. I will concede that it is disconcerting to me and others on our side to read the Speaker's comments this week that would seem to imply that there is a strategy of passing shorter term appropriation bills, with further and further and further cuts 2 weeks at a time.

We were concerned by his statement that seemed to indicate a plan for a piecemeal approach to future spending cuts. He said, ``If they won't eat the whole loaf at one time, we'll make them eat it one slice at a time.''

I believe we need to set aside these political machinations and get serious about finishing up work on the fiscal year 2011 budget. I will be the first to admit that it is because the Democrats didn't pass our bills last year that we're here working on this. So we have responsibility, too, and that's one of the reasons why we were so eager to engage Chairman Rogers in trying to get this open rule, to work through the amendments, get a unanimous consent agreement--to help move this process forward because I personally feel we have some responsibility here.

And I think it is obvious that we are going to need more than the 2 weeks to get from here to there.

Now, I appreciate the desire of the gentleman from Kentucky to encourage the Members of his caucus to enter into serious negotiations with the other body with the hope of completing work by March 18.

But in a conference--I've been in conferences for 34 years as a Member and 8 years before that as a staffer--nobody gets everything they want. It's a process of compromise. You work out the differences between the two positions.

So I'm proud of the fact that we start with a cut of $41 billion that was enacted by the Democratic Congress in December during a very successful lame duck session.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro), who is also the ranking Democratic member on Health and Human Services.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee), one of our distinguished Members.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield myself 1 minute.

You know, as I have said here today, everyone is in favor of doing deficit reduction. We want to do it in a way that won't hurt the economy. What I am concerned about is that if we have this large cut and then the States and local governments cut $125 billion at the same time, we will have about $185 billion of cuts, and that is going to cause a decline in economic growth.

I mean, it is basic economics. The way you get the deficit down is get people back to work, get people jobs, get them back to work. When the economy is as fragile as it is, it's a question of timing.

What the commission members said is don't do it in 2011; do it in 2012 and 2013 and then deal with the entire budget, deal with the entitlements, deal with the taxes, do the whole thing. Do the budget agreement that we all know we have to do, and that's going to take bipartisanship. That's going to take both parties, the President and the Senate and the House.

I yield myself 1 additional minute.

We are going to have to get together and work out an agreement and come out together and support it in order to get this through. This is what we did with Bob Dole and Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan.

So, this can be done, but we have to have everything on the table. Again, I worry about the 2 week Continuing Resolution. I think that's a bit ambitious.

Again, I want to point out to my colleagues that it was the Democratic House and Senate and President who passed the bill, the CR that cut $41 billion from Obama's FY 2011 request, $41 billion.

So I want to make sure you all don't forget that. I am going to try to continue to remind you of that fact.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Democratic leader and former Speaker, the gentlelady from California, Nancy Pelosi.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip and former majority leader, who will help correct the record.

I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield 2 minutes to the ranking member and former chairman of the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, the gentleman from Virginia, Jim Moran.

I was just glad to hear the litany of these things that you voted against. Are you still for those Civil War battlefields?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I think this has been a very spirited debate in the best traditions of the House. I want to point out a few facts to again correct the Record.

First of all, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act probably brought down the unemployment rate from 12 or 13 percent to 9.5 percent. We would have a 12.5 percent unemployment rate today if it weren't for the American Recovery Act.

The only deficit that has been cut around here was the $41 billion that was done by the Democrats and enacted in December and passed to March 4.

Now, again, we did not get our work done. Mr. Rogers and I are going to get the work done. But again, gentlemen and ladies, it's the economy. You've got to put people back to work. And if the net impact of what you do, the cuts you make are to throw people out of work, to cause the economy to stumble and stop the recovery and increase unemployment, then the deficit will go up.

The only way you get this better is to drive down unemployment, get people working, get businesses producing, get the revenues coming in. That will do it. But what the best economists in this country say is your medicine is not going to cure the patient. It could well harm the patient and cause things to get worse, not better. So that's why some people believe it's a timing issue.

And yet, again, I want you to know, we will work together in these next 2 weeks. We've got to get this thing resolved.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, in 4 days, the Federal Government will run out of money. We must ask ourselves, how did we get into this dire situation where we are 4 days away from critical Federal services being closed and our Federal Government being unable to meet its obligations.

Today we are racing the clock to avoid this shutdown in large part because we have squandered the past 2 weeks debating H.R. 1, a ridiculous spending bill that contained some cuts so extreme it had no realistic chance of ever being passed into law and left other areas of the budget that both sides have generally agreed need to be cut untouched. H.R. 1 also had every bit of social legislation from the Republican majority, including gutting the ability of EPA to protect our air and our water and defunding Planned Parenthood and family planning, so that it had a threat of a Presidential veto and faces no realistic prospects of passage in the Senate.

So rather than working with Democrats in the House and Senate to craft a real long-term CR that would preserve the gains of our economy and invest in our future, Republicans have squandered the past few weeks to pass their out-of-touch and unrealistic spending bill that would prove devastating to our economy, our safety, our health, and, yes, our values.

Their draconian spending bill would destroy 700,000 jobs, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's and former adviser to Senator John McCain. And as Goldman Sachs said, their long-term CR would ``stall the economic recovery and reduce U.S. economic growth.'' In fact, just this morning more than 300 economists from across the country warned against the massive GOP spending bill, stating that, ``as economists, we believe it is shortsighted to make budget cuts that eliminate necessary investments in our human capital, our infrastructure, and the next generation of scientific and technological advances. These cuts threaten our economy's long-term economic competitiveness.''

Mr. Speaker, today's continuing resolution meets our shared goal of preventing a Federal Government shutdown, but at what cost? And for how long? We are committed to reducing the deficit beginning with an aggressive attack on waste, fraud, and abuse. Every Member in this body owes it to our constituents to responsibly cut spending and balance the budget without sacrificing jobs or weakening our economy.

Time and time again, the Republican leadership has told us that they want to proceed in an open and transparent fashion, and yet here we are again, facing another closed rule, shutting down amendments from both sides and stifling the legislative process and good cost-cutting ideas from both sides of the aisle. In fact, yesterday in the Rules Committee, my colleagues took a party-line vote to block an amendment from the top ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, Mr. Dicks. Mr. Dicks' amendment would have cut more funds than the Republican bill and, at the same time, restored funds for education programs.

In the spirit of the urgent need for cost-cutting and balancing the deficit, I think this body should consider ideas from both sides of the table and allow a rule that allows for discussion of the Dicks amendment and other ideas to cut costs even further than this CR allows.

This CR may succeed in keeping the government open from March 5 through March 18, which I think we all agree is necessary. But we also all know that 2 weeks is not nearly enough time to negotiate a long- term solution to the enormous spending challenges we face, especially when the Constitution guarantees the President 10 of those days to decide whether to sign or veto the bill.

The other side had discussed, at the end of last session, the need to have stability with regard to what kind of taxes people and businesses can expect over time. And at the end of last session, we passed a bill that set predictability for 2 years so people and businesses know what their taxes will be. Well, the other side of that coin is we need predictability and stability around appropriations and the general activities of government. It is stifling to the economy and stifling to job creation for people to be uncertain as to whether the largest enterprise in our country, the Federal Government, will or won't be solvent in 4 days' time.

This is my third year in Congress and already the fourth time I've managed a rule on a short-term CR. The shortened timeline set out by this CR sets the stage for a devastating shutdown crisis every 2 weeks that will bring legislating to a standstill, impede hopes of long-term economic growth, and create enormous overhang on the markets because of this great uncertainty that is of our own creation.

We are also undermining, through this CR, Mr. Speaker, investments in our own future. Take the cuts to literacy programs, for example.

Building an excellent public education system that ensures that each and every child has an opportunity to succeed is the most important investment we can make in our Nation's future and developing our human capital which helps keep America competitive. This is an investment that I have spent much of my life to support and achieve--on the State Board of Education, as a founder of a charter school, and now here in Congress.

What we see now, however, from the proposed short-term CR is the elimination of the Striving Readers Fund, which supports literacy for students from preschool through 12th grade. With American students' reading scores stagnating for the past 30 years, this proposal makes no sense.

Striving Readers is the only targeted Federal literacy funding for preschool through 12th grade. And particularly at a time of State and local budgets cuts, these resources are more important than ever.

Now, we can agree that Striving Readers should be improved. In fact, I am working, along with Congressman Yarmuth, to provide the LEARN Act, which would ensure that teachers and students have innovative strategies and data-backed tools to improve reading and writing. The administration's proposal would build on the progress of the Striving Readers program.

President Obama said in his State of the Union address: It's not just about how we cut, but what we cut. Republicans have mistakenly claimed that the administration also wants to eliminate Striving Readers, but they neglect to mention that the administration's 2012 budget proposes instead to revise, improve Striving Readers. The goal is not to reduce and eliminate Federal support for literacy; it is to consolidate and make more efficient Federal support for literacy, to strengthen literacy performance expectations, scale up innovative methods of teaching reading, writing, and language arts.

In fact, nearly all States, 44, have applied for the first $10 million in the Striving Readers allocation that was available and have developed State literacy plans as a result. My home State of Colorado has been awarded $150,000 for these important projects.

Literacy is the foundation of learning. It is the gateway to other content areas that are increasingly important in the global society, like science and math. Destroying the foundation of literacy is cutting off our Nation's own legs. Education is an investment in our future. By pulling the rug out from under our schools and children, Republicans seem willing to sacrifice our future prospects as a Nation. Education is how America can reclaim our edge in job creation, bring jobs back to our shores, become better business leaders, and provide a livable wage for working families.

We all agree that cuts must be made. But as the Romans said, caveat emptor, may the buyer beware. By agreeing to cuts in repeated short- term CRs, we run the risk of opening the door to a spending agenda that arbitrarily kills jobs, hurts our communities, completely undermines education reform, and we do nothing to promote the stability of the Federal Government that markets require to allow businesses to thrive and grow.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 30 seconds.

The gentleman from Georgia said let us do more to save money, and yet this rule shuts down the process and doesn't allow amendments from the minority, including one by Mr. Dicks that saved over $1 billion and would have reduced the deficit by over $500 million. And yet again, through this closed rule, we are unable to do more, thanks to this restrictive rule by the Republican majority.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond.

H.R. 1 cannot be looked at as a serious budget document. Now, it's not about the cuts--$61 billion, $70 billion, we can come to a number that we can agree. And by the way, you can't come to a serious number without making sure that defense is also on the table. But what we have with H.R. 1 is a bill that loads up every piece of the far-right social agenda in one bill, from restricting a woman's right to choose, to preventing government from protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink. So if we want to have a discussion about a serious budget document and serious cuts, that's one thing. If we want to have a far- right dream list, that's another.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee.

I yield myself 30 seconds to respond.

I join the gentleman from Washington in praising the gentleman from California, the chair of the Rules Committee, with regard to the modified open process that this body was able to undertake.

But again, with regard to this particular bill before us, what the gentleman from California said is that the Democrats would be allowed to offer an amendment that would spend more but not allowed to offer a substitute amendment that would spend less. The Democrats, in fact, don't have a desire to offer forward a substitute amendment that spends more. We do have a desire to offer a substitute amendment that Mr. Dicks came forward that does spend less. The rule doesn't allow for that.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 20 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Richardson).

(Ms. RICHARDSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

I would like to inquire if the other side has any remaining speakers.

I yield myself as much time as remains.

Mr. Speaker, we all share the goal of reducing the deficit. But if we are serious about deficit reduction, we need to look at defense as one of the line items. I am a member of the Spending Cuts and Deficit Reduction Working Group, and I have worked with my colleagues to identify more than $70 billion in savings that could be used for deficit reduction.

If Republicans truly claim to be committed to deficit reduction, then why, as they cut millions from programs like Even Start and LEAP, do they spare defense spending? The short term CR carries forward the 2010 defense budget, but the policies, priorities, and levels proposed for 2010 no longer apply. Our current military expenditures support bloated troop levels and bases across Europe that quite frankly, Mr. Speaker, are relics of a bygone era. Rather than fighting the demons of the past, we need to focus on the very real threats of the present and future.

Who are we fighting? The Nazis, the Soviets, the French? It's time for us to rethink our defense spending. It's clear that the current strategy is one that we cannot afford.

The expenditures in Afghanistan are $100 billion. It's been estimated that there is only, at most, 100 al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan. That's a spending level of $1 billion per al Qaeda operative in Afghanistan. Most of al Qaeda's operations have moved across the border to Pakistan, and they have also gained a foothold in Yemen. Meanwhile, we are bogged down in a costly war with no clear end game.

Let's get serious about balancing the budget. Let's find savings in every agency, including the Department of Defense. Until we get serious about controlling defense spending, the largest component of the discretionary budget, we will never achieve our goals of reducing the deficit.

This CR claims to only cut earmarks, but in reality we are playing a shell game. This continuing resolution states that earmarks have no legal effect, which means that agencies have not been funding these programs. It means the Department of Homeland Security, for example, will have $264 million less to prepare and respond to threats and disasters and protect our ports.

Two weeks ago, Mr. Speaker, Members from both sides of the aisle proposed amendments to enact even more cuts. My friend from New York (Mr. Nadler) proposed cutting funding to Afghanistan so that we could have a responsible withdrawal, saving $90 billion. My friend from Arizona (Mr. Flake) proposed a very reasonable cut to the Department of Defense's operation and maintenance budget so that we could get rid of funding for unneeded boards and commissions.

I have also heard from many of my Republican friends that we want to go back to 2008 levels. Well, my colleagues from California, Mr. Stark and Ms. Lee, proposed to do just that with the defense budget. Let's get real on deficit reduction and lead the way with real cuts that actually balance the budget.

The President is proposing real change for public education through funding for the Investing in Innovation and Early Learning Challenge funds. We see none of these solutions in the proposed CR. As we look to agree on a budget for the rest of the fiscal year, it's critical that we have meaningful resources for our public schools, particularly at a time when they are under increasing budget pressure from districts and State cutbacks. Education of our children in their youngest years is a research-proven return on investment.

We have no second or third chance with kids. They are only young once. By ending literacy support for our children and restricting proven school improvements in repeated short-term CRs, we run the risk of opening the door to a spending agenda that eliminates jobs.

Mr. Speaker, it is critical that we give the markets and businesses the predictability that they need with regard to the ongoing operations of government. A 2-week continuing resolution simply fails to do that. We will be back before this body, again, to do it again regardless of the outcome today. But I hope, Mr. Speaker, that we can work across the aisle to put together a real long-term solution to keep the Federal Government open.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the rule, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 44) making further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2011, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise today in support of H.J. Res. 44, the fiscal year 2011 Further Continuing Appropriations resolution.

This temporary CR is an extra special effort by the majority Republicans to avoid a government shutdown that could otherwise occur on March 4, when the current funding resolution expires. This temporary CR contains funding to allow all government agencies and programs to continue at the current rate of spending for the next 2 weeks until March 18, 2011, while reducing spending by $4 billion through several spending cuts and program terminations. These cuts reflect this Republican majority's continued commitment to significantly reduce spending, to rein in the Nation's exploding deficits and debt, and to help our economy continue on the road to recovery.

Madam Speaker, a government shutdown would halt critical and necessary services and programs that Americans across the country rely on, and it is not what our constituents expect or demand.

I would have greatly preferred that the Senate act on the hard-fought and thoughtfully crafted funding legislation that the House passed almost 2 weeks ago which saves the taxpayers $100 billion compared to the President's request, but it's clear that the Senate needs more time. So this short-term CR will provide an additional 2 weeks by cutting spending to show our continued resolve to get our Nation's fiscal house in order.

The bill before us terminates eight programs for a savings of about $1.24 billion. These eight programs were all targeted for elimination in the President's budget request and have also been part of proposed cuts in the past in the House and the Senate by Members of both parties. These eight programs include: Election Assistance Grants, the Broadband Direct Loan Subsidy, the Smithsonian Institution Legacy Fund, the Striving Readers program, the LEAP program, Even Start, Smaller Learning Communities, and a one-time highway funding addition.

In addition, the bill also eliminates more than $2.7 billion in funding previously reserved for earmarks, eliminations that the House, the Senate, and the White House have all called for this year. The earmark funding cuts in this legislation come from Energy and Water; Homeland Security; Labor, Health and Human Services; legislative branch; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development program accounts.

This legislation will represent the second of many appropriations bills this year that will significantly reduce spending, continuing a pattern of cuts that will help put our Nation's budget back in balance and stop the dangerous spiral of unsustainable deficits and debt.

It is my hope that this CR can be passed quickly and that the President will sign it before the March 4 deadline. This legislation should garner broad support today, given the short timeframe for action and given the fact that these spending cuts have received previous bipartisan support by Members of the House and Senate as well as the White House.

Madam Speaker, we're now 5 months into the current fiscal year and it's critically important that we complete this budget process so that we can turn our attention quickly to passing funding bills for fiscal year 2012. It is high time we start looking forward instead of constantly looking back to clean up past mistakes and inaction. We must move forward quickly in regular order, passing bills on time in an open and transparent fashion to avoid these budget uncertainties in the future.

Madam Speaker, this is one more step that we have to take to get our fiscal house in order. While this isn't a perfect or an easy process, it is essential that we pass this bill, avoid a government shutdown, and continue to work on a long-term solution to complete this long overdue funding process. Our constituents expect and deserve no less.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself 30 seconds.

The gentleman, who is my friend, mentioned the economists and their opinion of H.R. 1, the budget-cutting bill we passed a couple of weeks ago.

The best source that I think of, right off, is Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, who has said H.R. 1 would have no negligible harmful impact on the economy. And if the Chairman of the Federal Reserve says that, I tend to believe him.

Now I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee on our committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen).

I yield 2 minutes to the chairman of the Agriculture Subcommittee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Will the gentleman yield?

Is the gentleman aware that Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, now says that H.R. 1 would have no harmful effect on the economy?

And that cutting spending and reducing the deficit will give confidence to the business community to hire people and put people to work.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the Labor-HHS subcommittee on appropriations, the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Rehberg).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Austria).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to point out to the body that over the last 2 years, the Congress went on a spending spree and increased spending by 84 percent in just 2 years. You ran the deficit up; the annual deficit, now two in a row, trillion- dollar-plus deficits per year, record breaking. We have never had that before. You ran the debt up to where now we are bouncing against the ceiling and the Congress will be called upon to increase the debt ceiling.

There were no appropriations bills passed last year at all. Thus that's why we are here today. So let's talk about the spending spree that we're trying to slow down and stop, Madam Speaker, with this bill.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Graves), a member of our committee.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire of the time remaining.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a brand- new member of the committee, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Yoder).

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Hurt).

Madam Speaker, I wish they had done better last year and passed one appropriations bill.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on H.J. Res. 44, and that I may include tabular material on the same.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the chairman of the MilCon and VA Subcommittee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Culberson).

May I inquire as to how much time is remaining.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Let's be clear what it is we're voting on here today. This is a short-term, 2-week CR. It cuts $4 billion, a little over $4 billion in spending that both parties have agreed to in the past, both bodies in the House and Senate have agreed to in the past, and agreed to by the White House.

So what are we talking about here? This is a 2-week extension. It's about as clean as you can make it. And, oh, by the way, speaking about that bill we passed 2 weeks ago, H.R. 1, that cuts $61 billion off of current spending, Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said as late as today that that bill will have no harmful effect on the economy. I don't know that there's a bigger, better source on the economy than the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and he says no problem.

Now, what the Democrats want to do, Madam Speaker--this is pretty simple--they want to freeze spending. They want to freeze spending at the biggest bloated level we've ever had.

They increased spending 84 percent over the last 2 years. Now they want to freeze and they'll go no higher. Well, it's bloated. We want to take it back down to where it's reasonable, where we can live with it. So we don't want another $1.7 trillion-a-year deficit like they've had the last year and, before that, something approaching that.

So I ask Members to vote for this short-term CR, to give us time to work with the other body on H.R. 1 to find out what their position is, about which we have no idea at this moment. They haven't acted. And so to avert a closedown of the government, which is what we're after here, we want to give the Senate time to look at H.R. 1 and tell us what their position is so we can have a conversation about it. And, frankly, 2 weeks is plenty of time, plenty of time in the House. I know the Senate works a bit more slowly, but 2 weeks should be plenty.

So, Madam Speaker, I urge Members to vote for this reasonable, fair, budget-cutting extension of the time to shut down the government. Vote ``yes'' and keep the government operating.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to the gentleman's motion to recommit.

If I understand the gentleman's motion correctly, it would, for a 2-week period, attempt to change the Tax Code to single out resource companies and increase their costs of doing business. This misguided policy can only lead to higher energy prices, continued reliance on foreign oil, and economic hardship that hampers job creation.

At a time when gasoline is currently approaching $4 a gallon around the country and when our resources are being threatened by the instability in the Middle East, we should be encouraging domestic energy production--not cutting it down.

We're talking about a 2-week continuing resolution to keep the government running past Friday, reduce spending, and avoid a government shutdown. This is neither the time nor the place to inject an unrelated job-crushing, controversial rider to the CR that will absolutely hinder its chance of passing in the Senate before this Friday when the current CR expires.

I urge defeat of this ill-advised motion.

I now yield to the gentleman from Idaho (Mr. Simpson), chairman of the Interior Subcommittee Appropriations.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

I thank the gentleman for yielding time and for presenting the Dicks substitute, which was not allowed to come to the floor, but nonetheless I salute him for his leadership in that regard.

Madam Speaker, Members of Congress agree, I think, on two things today: that we must move this process forward so that government does not shut down, and that we must reduce the deficit. As we do that, we must create jobs and strengthen the middle class. That is someplace where we may have some separation, because as the distinguished ranking member, Mr. Dicks, has said earlier, in December of 2010, congressional Democrats and the President of the United States cut spending by $41 billion--$41 billion. On that day in December, only one Republican voted for those cuts--only one.

February, 2 months later, Republicans passed a spending bill that does not create jobs but, in fact, has been said to destroy 700,000 jobs. That's approximately 100,000 jobs a week since we passed our ``cut it'' bill.

February 2011, Republicans passed the same spending bill that reduces U.S. economic growth by 1\1/2\ to 2 percent. Now some have questioned, Is it really as much as 700,000 jobs? Is it really as much as 1\1/2\ to 2 percent? But no one questions whether there will be job loss or whether there will be a slowing down of our economic growth among serious economists.

We are going in the wrong direction. How fast may be the question. But we are going in the wrong direction. That is why it's very important for us to proceed with great care and great caution here because, again, we have the opportunity to create jobs, to strengthen the middle class, and to do so in a way that is fiscally sound.

When I hear our colleagues talk about the deficit and the immorality of a big deficit--and I completely agree that we owe it to our children and our grandchildren not to leave them a debt--but all this talk about deficit is what we have, as Democrats, taken the lead on for decades.

Do you remember--because many of you were here at the time--that when President Clinton became President he inherited an enormous debt? He instituted pay-as-you-go, we had an economic agreement that was passed in the Congress, and the deficit began to reduce to a path of $5.6 trillion in surplus. Another President Bush took office; pay-as-you-go went out the window; and, again, the turnaround into growing deficits.

So for all of this talk about the immorality of deficits, where were you when those deficits were instituted in the late eighties? Some of you were here. In the 2000s, many of you were here. And, again, we have to take our country on a path of deficit reduction. Many of you were here when the tax cuts for the high end were implemented, creating no jobs, except increasing our deficit, sending the bill to our children and the credit to the Chinese Government.

How about when we did the prescription drug bill, giving away the store to the pharmaceutical industry and the price tag to our children by increasing the deficit? How about two wars, unpaid-for wars? God knows we will do anything to protect and defend our people. And I would hope that everybody subscribes to that. Why would we have tax cuts for people at the highest end? Why wouldn't they pay their fair share of protecting the American people and American interests and their interest wherever they may exist in the world?

And so we had in the 8 years of President Bush's administration a complete reversal, an $11 trillion swing, $5.6 trillion in surplus to nearly $5 trillion in debt.

And now people are saying it is an immorality to have national debt and to have these deficits. We thoroughly agree. And that's why, once again, we must take our country down a path of deficit reduction, but to do so in a way that is job creating and strengthening of the middle class.

As I said, in December 2010 Democrats cut $41 billion in spending. Only one Republican voted for that. February 2011, Republicans passed a spending bill that could destroy 700,000 jobs and reduce and slow down our GDP, our gross domestic product, by 1.5 to 2 percent. If you want to say it's going to slow down less than that, it's still going in the wrong direction.

I commented on Mr. Dicks' proposal because in the bill that we have before us, we have a situation where the Republicans have stripped the bill of important initiatives to the education of our children. In fact, President Obama made some of those cuts, too; but he didn't do it in a way that hurt the children.

What we debate today undermines our future by stripping support for some pressing educational challenges without redirecting those critical resources to meet the educational needs of our children. What Mr. Dicks proposed would have reversed that. He would have eliminated those educational programs in a way, as did the President, in the context of a comprehensive budget that also redirected funds to other initiatives addressing these needs.

If we do not, as a Congress, understand that education is essential, is key to all of our success--key to all of our success--then, frankly, the American people are way ahead of us on that. That's why I asked when we debated the bill before the break to see a quarter of a million children thrown off Head Start and many teachers fired alongside that, is that a smart cut? Sure, we have to tighten our belt. But let's do it, again, in a very smart way.

I just want to know where everybody was in the days when this deficit grew in the 8 years of the Bush administration. That's why we're in the situation we are in today. That's why we must, again, make some very difficult decisions.

So what is before us today is for the short term. It is saying, let's just keep the government open 2 weeks so we use that time to do the right thing and so we use that time to have a reality check--a reality check--on how we got these deficits in the first place. Tax cuts at the highest end do not create jobs but increase the deficit and are not the appropriate path to deficit reduction. Cutting education and therefore the innovation that goes with it and the strength of our children and affecting our economy is not the way to do it.

Many people here have met much experience on the way to do it, and they sit on both sides of the aisle. So let's get through this today, recognizing the challenge that we have, understanding that this bill before us is not a good one, but it's not final.

And when we come together, we need to meet the three criteria: Does it create jobs? Does it strengthen the middle class? Does it reduce the deficit? Because all of those who say that it is immoral for us to grow the deficit and pass those bills on to our children and grandchildren are right. I just don't want them to ignore the fact that we got here a certain way, and please do not ask us to go down that path again with the sanctimonious attitude that it is a morality for us to do exactly the same thing again, ignoring again the tremendous, tremendous suffering of the American people and their need for jobs, ignoring the aspirations of our children and their need for education by making the cuts that are in here without them rechanneling to a better place.

This is as serious a debate that we can have in the Congress of the United States because it affects our children and their future, because the deficits have gotten so far out of hand.

I am very proud of the fact that 30 years ago--in 1982, 29 years ago--when Democrats gathered in Philadelphia for a midterm conference, pay-as-you-go was placed on the agenda, passed as a resolution, and became part of the Democratic platform. Fiscal responsibility is a part of who we are. Our Blue Dog Coalition has had this as their mantra: pay as you go. Do not add to the deficit. If we all share that view, we should all be able to come together because the numbers will add up or they will not add up, and the bill for sure will be sent to our children and grandchildren.

Some of you have children; some of you have children and grandchildren. Would you ever dream of sending them a bill for a personal expense? If you were to leave them anything, would you leave them a bill? We cannot leave the children of America with any bills for any fiscal deficit either. It wouldn't be the right thing to do. But in order for us to do the right thing, it is time for a serious reality check, and that is the opportunity Mr. Dicks was giving us today. The Rules Committee rejected that. I hope that in the weeks ahead, depending on what happens here today, we can move on with it so we can spend whatever time it takes to do it right. Nothing less is at stake than the economic security of our country, the well-being of our children, the well-being of our children and the confidence that the American people have in what we are sent here to do for them.