Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

I'm opposed in its current form.

I suspect that, Mr. Speaker, all of us would want to see more jobs in America. The great American manufacturing sector over the last 20 years has lost about 9 million jobs. Twenty-five years ago, no one throughout this world would doubt that the greatest manufacturing Nation in the world was America. Twenty-five years later, and 9 million jobs having been lost, America has lost its preeminence-- or is about to lose its preeminence. It would seem to me it's our job here as representatives of the American public and the American economy to do everything we possibly can to rebuild and reestablish the great American manufacturing sector, to do everything we can to restore to America those 9 million middle class jobs that have been lost to outsourcing, to our companies moving overseas, and to some rather impractical and rather foolish laws that have been passed and are on the books.

There is something we can do today with this bill. This bill, while seeming to be small, ought to be our very first step this session to make sure that in every piece of legislation we pass there would be an incentive, an obligation, or an advantage for American manufacturers.

Small hydro, who's to care about small hydro? Well, there are four businesses in America that would care a great deal about small hydro. In New Mexico, the Elephant Butte Irrigation District develops low-cost small hydro. Canyon Hydro in Deming, Washington, manufactures and produces small hydro. NATEL Energy Company in Alameda, California, manufactures small hydro programs. And James Leffel & Company in Springfield, Ohio, manufactures the machinery for small hydro. This bill would provide an opportunity for these four American companies to build these small hydro projects, made in America, made by Americans.

The amendment that I'm proposing simply says, in addition to what is in this bill, that we add a simple paragraph that says:

In all practical purposes, the machinery that is to be

constructed and used in these projects shall be made in

America by American workers.

One small step, but a necessary step, and one step along the way to rebuilding the American manufacturing sector.

We can do this. There are those who say that, well, we're not making it. Well, we are making it. And when we write laws that require that it be made in America, guess what? Things are made in America.

In that stimulus bill--whatever you may think it, good or bad--there was a provision written in that Amtrak was to have some new locomotives. Someone put in an additional sentence that said these must be 100 percent made in America. Siemens, the German company, came forward and said: We can do that. And in Sacramento, California today, a half-billion-dollar contract is being executed for numerous electric locomotives for Amtrak, 100 percent American made.

We can establish the policies to make it in America and to rebuild the great American manufacturing sector. We ought to be using all of our tax money whenever we purchase something to be made in America. If we're going to subsidize solar panels or wind turbines or even hydro projects, then let it be American manufacturers that get that money--to be made in America. Simple, but it's up to us. It's up to 435 of us.

What is to be our policy? Are we going to encourage American manufacturing with something as simple as this amendment, or are we simply going to shrug our shoulders and ignore the fact that 9 million American manufacturing jobs have been lost? Are we to ignore our responsibility to bring those jobs back here? I don't think there's one of us among the 435 of us here, Mr. Speaker, that would say: not to worry, let it be. No, I think all of us, Mr. Speaker, would want to bring the American manufacturing jobs back.

This amendment--which would be the final amendment to the bill and which will not kill the bill or send it back to committee--this amendment, if adopted, would proceed immediately to passage and give to American workers a small but significant opportunity to have a well- paying middle class job and once again America being the undisputed leader in manufacturing.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield for a question?

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

Mr. Blumenauer, I would be honored to participate in this conversation. And, Mr. Speaker, it's always a great pleasure and, in fact, important that those of us 435 that have been elected to represent the American citizens rise on the floor to speak to issues of great importance.

When all is debated, at the end of those debates I suppose we ought to say, Was that important? We debated earlier about a piece of this puzzle, but this is the most consequential issue facing the entire globe. Climate change is a very, very real challenge for the human race.

In the early nineties, I was Deputy Secretary at the Department of the Interior and was asked by the President and Vice President at the time to join in developing a strategy for America at the Kyoto Conference, which was the second international effort to come to grips with this issue. We studied the various ramifications of climate change and we predicted that what you just described in your opening statement, Mr. Blumenauer, would happen. And, indeed, it is happening-- the climate is changing. It is warmer.

There are more extreme events, and the impact is already being perceived in those things that are most unnoticed, which is the change in the vegetation and in the flora and fauna throughout the United States. As you hike through the mountains of the Sierras, you have to go a little higher to see species, both animal and fauna, that lived at a lower elevation. They're moving up the mountain, those that can. Those that can't, for example, some species of trees and plants that aren't able to remove their roots and move up the mountain, and they're simply going to become extinct.

Now, what do we do about it? Well, there are many things we can do without actually harming the economy. In fact, there are many things we can do that will cause the economy to grow, for example, conservation. Conservation of energy is an enormously important way to conserve our money, our energy supplies, and reduce carbon emissions, because much of the energy in the United States actually comes from carbon emissions.

For example, how about better mileage in our cars? Thankfully, we have President Obama and the Democratic administration that has taken very aggressive steps to reduce the consumption of gasoline and diesel in our automobiles and trucks, thereby conserving and saving us money and simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emission.

There are many, many other things. One bill we took up on the floor today that passed--and my amendment wasn't adopted--but, nonetheless, it is the small hydro. It's using hydropower wisely where we can, without harming the environment, but also adding to the energy production. Moving away from coal, which we know to be the single biggest source of carbon from power plants as we generate electricity, moving initially to gas-fired power plants, which have significantly less carbon emissions, and in that process, taking the steps to move to renewable power sources of all kinds--hydro, where it makes sense.

How about wind turbines? I don't have the statistics with me today, but we've made an enormous advancement in wind energy and solar energy. And by the way, if we're going to do that in the United States with our tax policies and give a tax rebate or credit, then we ought to make it in America. Have those turbines and solar panels made in America so that we not only do what is right by the environment, but we also do what it right by the American workers so that we can rebuild our American manufacturing.

There are many, many other concepts, all of which grow the economy. They don't harm the economy at all but, rather, grow the economy. Reducing emissions, not only carbon emissions, but from the coal-fired power plants, reducing rather dangerous substances like mercury and arsenic.

So we should move these things forward. Unfortunately, we are running up against a block of votes on the right side of this House--not right on policy but, rather, in location--where they are blocking the efforts that we must make to come to grips with this. My point here is that, while this is a fundamental problem for this Nation, it's also a fundamental opportunity for America to grow a new economy.

We just heard read here on the floor not more than 30 minutes ago the statement by the President of his new budget in which he makes the point that, by addressing climate change, we also address the need to rebuild the American economy and to set it on a path where we can compete and sell these technologies and products all around the world. Because this is not just an American problem, this is a national- international problem, and all of us, wherever we are, whatever country we are in, we must take action. We must take action. We cannot let this slide.

And my plea, as you made yours, Mr. Blumenauer, to our Republicans colleagues is: let's debate this. If you don't believe this is a problem, come to the floor and tell us why this is not a problem. If you do not believe that we should manufacture wind turbines and solar panels here in the United States and deploy them rather than continuing with the coal-based economy, then tell us why. I wait for that debate, and I'll join you in it, Mr. Blumenauer.

Thank you for the privilege of joining you. I see that we have another colleague. We may reopen the West Coast-East Coast show, Mr. Blumenauer.

If I might interrupt you for a second, there are those that would claim that this place is also a windy Chamber.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to address an empty House, but perhaps a few are watching C-SPAN.

We've just heard a fascinating 4-hour discussion on economic policy. A fundamental part of our work here in Congress is to set the economic policy for the United States. As we listened to that 4-hour debate and discussion, there were a lot of charts and a lot of economic theory on both sides: small government versus an active, investing government; the growth of taxes, or the lack thereof; a discussion about jobs and the like. I'd like to first start my discussion this evening on what we ought to be doing. That is the purpose of all of this.

I harken back to the 1930s, a period of time when the Nation was in a very serious Depression, unemployment was rampant, and there was a lot of pain and suffering throughout this Nation. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the President at the time. Today, we are in a somewhat better situation, but still there's a lot of pain, a lot of unemployment, and a lot of families in desperate situations. Back in the thirties, Franklin Delano Roosevelt put forth his New Deal. He articulated--at least a part of it--with what I call ``The Test.'' He said:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the

abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide

enough for those who have little.

That's a value statement. That's a statement about how he saw the role of government, and I agree with him.

Our task here today, as we debate tomorrow and the next 2 days what the economic policy of America will be, we ought to harken back to what Franklin D. Roosevelt said in the 1930s: ``The test of our progress.'' ``The test of our progress.''

What are we to do? Are we to follow policies that would enrich the wealthy even more? And we have one such proposal before us; it's the Ryan Republican budget. It would slash the top tax rate from 39 percent to 25 percent and add another quarter of a million dollars of income annually to those who are making over 400--or over $1 million a year. I think that goes counter to what Franklin Roosevelt said:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the

abundance of those who have much.

The remaining portion of that proposal by Mr. Ryan would put a greater burden on the working men and women and the poor, and it's done in two ways. One way is to remove those tax write-offs that the middle- income, that the working men and women have, significantly reducing those and cutting off those programs that people without jobs depend upon--from unemployment insurance to food stamps and to other benefits that they have--so much so that their actual tax burden would rise by somewhere between $2,000 to $3,000 a year. Franklin Roosevelt said the test of our progress is ``whether we provide enough for those who have little.''

So if we are to believe that our role in government is to provide, to assist, to help, to bring up those who have little--the men and women who are unemployed, the families that have lost their homes, those who are searching for a well-paying job--if that is the test of our progress, if that is our value and our purpose, then I think we'd better think about a different economic policy than is presented to us by the Republicans. I would like to spend some time discussing that this evening.

First of all, there's an immediate situation in which the sequestration--which I have voted repeatedly to end, and many of my colleagues have also--is inherent in the Republican proposal. That sequestration will bring pink slips to 750,000 Americans in this year, the 2013 year; 750,000 Americans will lose their jobs. So if the test of our progress is to help those who have little, well, the Republican budget adds 750,000 people to those who will have very little. They would lose their job.

So why would we do this? Why would we do any economic policy that would add 750,000 people to the unemployment rolls? It makes no sense if you want to grow the economy. If you want to reduce your tax revenues and increase your deficit, I suppose this is one way to do it, but it's not a very good way.

I will tell you that in my district, at Travis Air Force Base, where men and women are going to lose their jobs, where 20 percent of their pay will be cut, it's a very serious problem for our Nation's defense. Because from that Air Force base, the big C-5As and the C-17s that carry men and women and equipment across this globe to fight our wars, to protect our Nation, they will be sitting on the ground. They will not be doing their training. They will not be prepared to carry out their task in defending this Nation.

Why would we do that? It makes no sense to me. Whether it has to do with the test of our progress or our values or our Nation's defense, why would we want to move a policy that would send 750,000 people through the unemployment lines? It makes no sense to me at all.

I was home in my district this last weekend and I was talking to some elderly people that attended one of my meetings. They were asking me, Is it true that you guys are going to cut Medi-Cal?--which is the Medicaid program in California. I said, No, not us guys; but, yes, there is a proposal in Congress to seriously cut Medicaid, and therefore Medi-Cal. They said, Don't they understand that that's how my husband is supported in the nursing home? What are we to do if those cuts force him out of the nursing home?

Well, the reality is that that could happen, because we have a budget on the floor that 435 of us will be voting on in the next couple of days that actually will reduce the Medicaid--and, therefore, Medi-Cal in California--by a third, a third cut. Therefore, that lady who was concerned about her husband's care in the nursing home will find a problem.

She and perhaps many, many others--not perhaps, definitely--many other senior citizens are going to find their opportunity to have care in a nursing home removed. It's a very serious issue because who are those people that are going to see their Medi-Cal, or across this Nation, Medicaid support significantly reduced by one-third? Well, here they are. Two-thirds of them are seniors and people with disabilities. We're not talking about welfare and all that goes with that. We're talking about seniors and men and women in this Nation that have such disabilities that they cannot care for themselves. These are the people that are going to be hurt. Another 20 percent of them are children.

Why? Why would this House vote for a budget that would harm seniors, the disabled and children? Why would we do that? Perhaps the argument that you heard over the last 4 hours is, well, we need to deal with the deficit. Yes, we do. But do we need to deal with it in this way, that we go after seniors, we go after people with disabilities that cannot care for themselves and children and take it to them? And at the very same time in the very same piece of legislation give the superwealthy an additional, extraordinarily large amount of money that the average worker in the United States would have to work 5 to 6 years to equal the tax reduction given to those who are earning a million dollars? And for those that are earning a billion dollars, it is add three to four more zeros to their tax reduction.

Why would we do that? It makes no sense. It is not the American value. It's not what FDR said should be the test of our progress-- seniors, children and disabled. Why would we do that?

When you look at that budget and you look at that proposal a little more, what do you see? The seniors, not those who are in nursing homes without income, but seniors, the average senior. The average senior in the United States has a median annual income of $22,800--median. Half of the seniors in this Nation have an annual income of less than $22,800. Half of them have more than that.

So where are we with the proposal that we'll be voting on in the next couple of days from our Republican colleagues? It is a proposal that will end the Medicare program as we know it, and all Americans who are not yet 55 years of age will never see the Medicare guarantee that is available to those Americans that are now 65 and 55 years or older, the Medicare guarantee of a health care program that has, since its inception in 1964, taken nearly all of the seniors in this Nation out of poverty when together with Social Security.

Before there was Medicare in 1964, there was rampant poverty among seniors. I've said on this floor before, and I'll say it again tonight, one of the searing memories in my mind was a trip when my father took me to the county hospital in Calaveras County in the 1950s to visit my neighbor, a rancher, who could no longer take care of himself. He didn't have the money, he was poor, and he wound up in the county hospital. There was a ward, perhaps 20 seniors in the worst possible condition without adequate medical care, simply lined up bed to bed to die.

What are we doing here? What are we doing? Why would we set up a program to end one of the most important, valuable programs to every American citizen? That is the promise of Medicare, a comprehensive medical program for them to take care of their health in their senior years. Why would we end that and turn it over to the health insurance industry?

Now, I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years. I know the health insurance industry, and I know their number one purpose: it's profit. They continually will put profit before people, and yet the proposal that is given to us by the Republican majority is to take every American under the age of 55 and give them a voucher so that they can go to those rapacious health insurance companies and try to get an adequate health insurance policy.

The guarantees that are in the Affordable Care Act would be wiped out by their legislation. The guarantees of an adequate insurance program, the end of discrimination based upon age and preexisting conditions, gone, wiped out. What are they thinking? What are they thinking? Do they understand what the American senior is going through? I think not. I think not. When you consider who those seniors are, I don't understand. I do not understand.

Now, there's an alternative, there's an alternative put forward by our Democrats on this side. You've heard it discussed here in the previous 4 hours. It is an equivalent that is a reflection of the basic American value of taking care of each other, of helping each other, the value of a community, a small community perhaps like I live in in California, the community of Walnut Grove, or the large community of all of us, over 300 million Americans, where we care for each other, where we

test our progress by making sure that all of us are lifted up, not just the superwealthy, not just those who have everything they could possibly need--I understand they may want more--but rather to provide the basic needs of these who have nothing or little--health care, food, shelter, and clothing.

That's where we're coming from. We do it in a way that actually reduces the deficit over time, brings back into a reasonable balance the annual appropriations and the revenues of this government, does it in a way that meets the needs of this generation and future generations, does it in a way that makes the critical investments that grow the economy, rather than stifle the economy by pulling out of the economy, as our Republican colleagues would, the essential elements of economic growth.

There are five of them. I've talked about this for more than 25 years in California and beyond. Those critical investments in present and future economic growth are simple, but they are powerful, and they are absolutely necessary. They are education, research, infrastructure, manufacturing--making things here in America--and change. Those are the five elements. And now that we're here at the Federal level, we must add to that our Nation's security, defense and others.

Let me put a couple of things up here. Growing the economy: growing the economy requires that we invest in infrastructure. This is both immediate and long term.

When we invest in infrastructure, we put people to work now. We can do this. Men and women and companies and contractors are ready to go to work. The skilled labor force is there. All they need is for this government to fund a substantial infrastructure program, and that's precisely what the Democratic budget does. It adds $50 billion now to the appropriations for this year and creates an infrastructure bank so that we can have a public-private partnership to build those infrastructure programs that have a cash flow: sanitation projects, water projects, toll bridges, toll roads, airports. Many of the infrastructure programs that this Nation desperately needs can be financed with an infrastructure bank. For those that cannot be financed with a public-private partnership, we can and we must use our general fund revenue to build the infrastructure.

For every dollar we invest in infrastructure, we immediately return to the economy $1.57. Don't take my word for it. Take Mark Zandi's word, an economist for Moody's Analytics.

Nobody has debated that point. So why don't we invest in the infrastructure? When we do so, we will be safer. We'll have safer airports; our roads will be safer, they'll be paved; and the potholes, not all will disappear, but over time. We will improve our highway system. And our bridges, many of which are deemed to be insufficient and unsafe, can be repaired and rebuilt. And in the process, we've laid the foundation for future economic growth.

On the education side, it is exactly the same. On the education side, if we educate our children, if we have the best education program in the world, something very good will happen to this Nation. First, we will be competitive.

If we fail to educate our workforce, there is no way that we can be competitive. Yet, the budget being proposed by our Republican majority slashes the education programs in this Nation. And for those who are in college or have graduated, they would double the interest rates on student loans. What are they thinking?

On the other hand, our Democratic budget would actually increase funding this year for education, keeping teachers in the classroom, giving schools the opportunity to improve. In the infrastructure program, there are facilities and the opportunity in higher education to continue to keep students in school.

For those who need additional training in the work programs, the Workforce Investment program would be augmented, and we would be able to provide the upgrade in skills and education for those who are unemployed so that they would have a chance to get a job in a growing economy. We envision a growing economy where jobs are created. We know that this year the difference between the budget that we're proposing and the budget that our Republican colleagues are proposing is a difference of 1.2 million jobs.

With the continuation of the sequestration, 750,000 jobs will be lost. We end that. That's 750,000 on the plus side. And with the investments in education and infrastructure, we would add another 400,000 to 500,000 jobs. That's 1.2 million jobs. There's a big difference here: Americans going back to work and Americans being laid off.

We also know that the future economy demands that this Nation become and continue to be the most aggressive, robust research Nation in the world. We are today. No one, no other country, no other university in any other country can match the research that's done in the United States. It is that research that has kept this economy ahead, has kept us moving forward, yet here again we see a departure in how to grow this economy, how to create jobs.

Our budget, our proposal would continue to fund the research programs and, in fact, augment them more than what is currently available in today's appropriations. On the other hand, there are slashes to the research budget.

Today, farmers from my district, today researchers at the University of California at Davis, today the head of the Northern California Resource Conservation District organization came to my office and said, We need your help. We need your help to deal with a very real problem in California. Over the years for a variety of reasons, the aquifers, the underground water tables of California have been contaminated with nitrates, nitrates from the farm, nitrates from fertilizer, dairies and the rest.

There is a requirement, in fact a necessity, to reduce that contamination and, in fact, to eliminate it. However, in order to do so, fundamental research in the way in which plants take up nitrogen needs to be undertaken so that the nitrogen fertilizer that is applied to the fields matches the amount of nitrogen that the plants actually need. And that varies from soil condition to soil condition. Yet, in the budget that's been proposed by our Republican colleagues, there is a $45 million diminution, reduction in the available research money at the University of California at Davis, critical research needed by farmers so that they don't unnecessarily fertilize their fields, so that they accurately match the needs of their plants to the amount of fertilizer they apply. In so doing, they reduce the contamination that is a serious health problem in many parts of California.

Which path do we go on? Do we invest in energy research critical to this Nation? It was, in fact, past research conducted by the United States Government, the U.S. Geological Survey and the Department of Energy that created the knowledge and the techniques for fracking, which has opened up a vast resource through this Nation, a gas resource, natural gas resources, as well as oil.

Research is fundamental: energy research, agricultural research, research in health care, research in the way in which we conduct our communications system. All of these things are fundamental, yet a choice will be made in the next few days which path we go on.

The fourth point I wanted to make is this: Manufacturing. Manufacturing matters. Manufacturing is where the middle class is. Manufacturing is where we built the great American middle class, making things, cars, refrigerators and the more advanced things such as high- speed trains and the like. We need to return this Nation to a manufacturing Nation. This is the creation of wealth. Using research, new products, new technologies, new ways in which we can make things, advanced manufacturing technology, we can rebuild the great American manufacturing sector.

We lost 9 million manufacturing jobs in the last 20 to 25 years. America can't afford that. We need tax policies. We need policies that encourage manufacturing in the United States. It was 2\1/2\ years ago that we passed legislation that eliminated many of the tax breaks that corporations had to offshore jobs. We need to finish that job. The President said clearly in his State of the Union message we need to provide tax breaks for on-shoring, bringing those

jobs back to America, and end the remaining tax breaks that corporations get for off-shoring. In so doing, we build our economy and we help to balance the budget by bringing tax revenues back to this Nation.

Manufacturing matters. Billions of dollars of our tax money are spent every year on goods and services, many of which are not made in America.

Why in the world would we spend our tax dollars on steel that's manufactured in China to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge? This is 43 million tons of steel, maybe 3,000 to 6,000 jobs in China, not in the United States--American tax money spent. It goes on and on. We need a strong Make It in America, Buy It in America policy so that our tax money is spent on American-made products and services, not on foreign made. Now, if you want to spend your own money out there, fine--buy whatever you want to buy--but if you're going to spend American taxpayer money, then we should spend that money on American- made equipment.

That is precisely the policy that we are offering here in the United States as we move our infrastructure programs forward and as we move forward with our energy development--our solar and our wind and other advanced energy systems. It is to use our tax money to build American manufacturing, once again, here in our Nation. So manufacturing matters, and we will Make It in America when, once again, it is made in America. It is very fundamental.

So these are the things: education, infrastructure, research, manufacturing, and change. We have to be willing to change in many, many of our policies.

How can we pay for this? Here is one novel idea. We can end those tax breaks that are given to individuals and to corporations that are no longer necessary.

The oil industry over the last decade earned $1 trillion in profit. This is the Big Five. It's not all the small ones. It would be much higher if you added the small ones. We are in the midst of an energy boom right now--oil, natural gas. We are producing more energy of natural gas and oil than we have in the last two or three decades. Also, the oil companies are doing pretty well, yet they continue to receive billions of dollars a year--perhaps as much as $5 billion, $4 billion for the Big Five in the oil industry--of your tax money to support them as their profits have added up to over $1 trillion. This is just the Big Five in the last decade.

Why would we do that? Why would we continue to use our tax money to support the oil industry? They get enough at the pump from us. They don't need a tax break. Let's take that tax break, turn it around and put it into tomorrow's energy systems, into supporting the green technologies--the solar, the wind, the conservation programs, the electric car systems, the batteries that will power those systems in the future--as we transition our economy from where we were to where we must be in the future. That's just one example of the tax breaks that are not necessary, and there are numerous other ones.

Why would we give Wall Street hedge fund billionaires an additional tax break where their real income--I mean, not capital gains, but their earned income--is taxed at capital gains rates rather than at an income tax rate? Why would we do that? We should end those kinds of tax breaks that are not necessary for economic growth and shift that money into deficit reduction or into assisting those future industries that we need to have or, perhaps, into research or education.

These are all strategies for the future, and they affect my communities that I represent. The infrastructure programs are crucial to my communities. I represent 200 miles of the Sacramento River. The second-most flood prone part of this Nation, the second-most at-risk cities in this Nation are in my district.

One proposal would reduce the infrastructure money needed to upgrade the levees to provide the protection for human life and property. Another proposal is to invest in infrastructure. One proposal is to cause layoffs and to take out those civil servants who are working in the Army Corps of Engineers and to say, For 20 percent of the time, you're going to be furloughed; you're not going to work. So the Army Corps of Engineers' work necessary to design, to oversee and to push forward the projects that I need in my district in order to protect my citizens will be delayed. It will be delayed through the next storm season.

We pray we won't have a flood, but why should we even have to pray when our proposal on the Democratic side would fully fund those civilians in the Army Corps of Engineers who are necessary to push forward the projects to protect Sacramento, to protect Marysville, to protect Yuba City, and to provide the money--the Federal share of the cost--of rebuilding and upgrading those levees? I'm not the only place in this Nation that is faced with that. We saw recently Superstorm Sandy, and we know the horrible impact that that had on New Jersey, New York, and the surrounding areas. We need to rebuild. We need to put that infrastructure in place because we know there will be additional superstorms in the future.

We are looking at a fundamental policy here, a fundamental question of our values as Americans. Are we going to have an investment strategy that grows the American economy and puts people back to work and protects Americans? Whether they are poor or impoverished, whether they are children or seniors, are we going to put in place policies that meet their basic needs? And for those future seniors, will they have the promise of Medicare? That is a question before the House of Representatives that in the next 3 days will be answered.

I pray and I work with my colleagues to see to it that we have a growth agenda, that we have an agenda of jobs, that we have an agenda to care for those who have little, and that we honor this value:

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the

abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide

enough for those who have too little.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back my remaining time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 9 o'clock and 17 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, March 20, 2013, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Dr. Jiro Jerry Kaneko, who passed away on January 18th, 2013 at the age of 88. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the service and contributions of Dr. Kaneko to his country, his immediate community and the field of veterinary medicine.

Jerry Kaneko led a life of service and dedication that has made him an inspiring role model in our community. Dr. Kaneko was the son of Japanese immigrants who operated a family farm in French Camp, CA. Shortly after Jerry completed high school, the family was ordered to a World War II internment camp in Arizona. Even when faced with the injustice and humiliation of internment and loss of the Kaneko family farm, Jerry Kaneko joined the United States Army and at the end of the war served in occupied Japan.

After returning from the war, Dr. Kaneko entered UC Davis where he graduated with a doctorate in veterinary medicine and an another doctorate in comparative biochemistry. Dr. Kaneko was invited to join the faculty of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine where he co- authored a seminal textbook that is now in its sixth edition, has been translated into several languages and serves as a standard reference in the field. Dr. Kaneko's research and instruction has reached institutions of veterinary science around the world. Even

as an Emeritus Professor, he remained active in international veterinary research, writing, speaking and consulting in international scientific societies.

In retirement Dr. Kaneko became active in public service. In 1994 he was elected to the Davis City Council for a term of four years. He served on the Area Four Agency on Aging Advisory Board and the Board of Directors for Davis Community Meals & Shelter, among a number of organizations, representing his community on the local and state levels. Shortly before his passing Dr. Kaneko received a Board of Directors Recognition Award from the Yolo County Mexican-American Concilio, an organization that provides educational scholarships and grants to students in need. In every endeavor Jerry Kaneko was revered for his generosity, quick smile and infectious enthusiasm.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to recognize a man who had a powerful positive impact on his profession and his community. I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing Dr. Kaneko's life and many achievements.

Mr. Speaker, thank you very much.

I am John Garamendi from California, and I am joined by several of my colleagues here tonight. We want to go through a couple of things that are of the utmost importance to Americans. I had three townhalls on Saturday in California--it was about a 450-mile drive to get to all three of them--but at each and every one of them the concerns were very, very similar.

The first overriding concern was the economy. In California, there is this desire to get the economy going. There is a pent-up energy in the people--in the businesses, in the small businesses, in the farmers. It's not just because it's spring and the almonds are blossoming--or maybe it's the ``a-munds'' depending on what part of my district you're from. It's that there is this desire to get moving forward.

They keep asking me, What's going on in Congress? Why can't you guys get it together out there?

And we explained what's happening here.

We have been through five crises over the last 18 months-- manufactured crises, things that didn't have to happen. Each and every time, the entire system of America's economy and politics comes to a stop, and we lurch up to that fateful cliff, and then we move on but not with the kind of robust energy that this economy is capable of. We need to get this continuing resolution and all of these fiscal cliffs out of the way to get the economy moving, and there are some very, very good examples of why the economy is poised to take off.

One of them is found here. If you take a look at this chart, these are the job creations or losses beginning way back in 2009, 2008. All of those red lines are the collapse of the economy. When the blue came in, that's when President Obama came in 4 years ago, and things were tough. We were in a free fall here in our economy; but with the stimulus bill, we began to climb out. After about 18 months, we began to see positive job growth--we were no longer seeing those job losses-- and we've seen that all the way through. This last month was a terrific month. There were 247,000 new jobs created, and that was in February.

So what happens in March?

In March, we come up against another cliff; and now we have sequestration, leaving us 750,000 unemployed Americans. It's not a gain in the economy. The unemployment rate went down to 7.7 percent in the previous month, and now we have sequestration. We passed a bill out of here last week that was supposed to solve it. It really didn't. In fact, it maintained sequestration. It took care of a few things, but we've got to get past this. We need to grow this economy, and we need to make the investments. There are really only five critical investments that need to be made year after year after year, and we need to do these things repeatedly--every month, every year, in every budget:

Education--sequestration cuts education at all levels;

Research--sequestration cuts research. In my district, at the University of California at Davis, $45 million of research projects will come to a screeching halt. Ph.D.s and others will be laid off;

Infrastructure--sequestration cuts infrastructure. Manufacturing matters. You've got to make things;

Those are the four. The fifth is you have to be willing to change, but you've got to change in a positive way.

What we're going to talk about with my colleagues here is this issue of how to move the economy forward. As we look at the past and at the success--modest, not enough, but on the right track--we need to keep in mind that it is the role of the government, dating back to George Washington and Alexander Hamilton when Washington asked Hamilton to develop an industrial plan for the United States and Hamilton did. He laid out in that plan the critical role of government in moving the American economy forward, and that was in the very first year of these United States. We should carry that tradition forward. So as we go into this, let's keep in mind that we've made progress and that we have much more to do.

Joining me tonight is a gentleman who has created many, many jobs, and now he has a new one. He is a Member of Congress from the great State of Maryland, and it's Mr. Delaney.

Thank you very much for joining us. You have an exciting district. You have a considerable amount of high-tech in your district.

So share with us your thoughts about how we can grow the economy, and maybe share some of your own experiences, because you've employed many, many people during your tenure in business.

Thank you very much, Mr. Delaney. Well, you hit it right on the head: education, the technology issues that we have before us, the issue of globalization and how we deal with it here, and our energy policy. We are really blessed in the United States with energy that has suddenly come back to blossom, and that's natural gas. What an enormous asset for this country, and we need to really push that further along. And the immigration issue, all of these things are before us right now.

If we move forward aggressively with the kinds of things that you talked about, and we're spending time here on the floor, we can really move this country. And with the energy that businesses have and the experience that you know from your own experience in business, there is a pent-up demand. There's a lot of cash in the businesses of the Nation. We need the policies laid out there.

Perhaps you can take up the energy piece and elaborate a little more on how you see the use of natural gas as a bridge as you get to those clean energy issues that you talked about.

I really agree with all you said. And as we make that bridge to that clean energy future--you talked about those 50-year increments as we change from one source of energy to another. In that process, we, American taxpayers, seriously subsidized each and every one of those transitions. We now have to shift, it seems to me, shift some of those subsidies from the old energy sources, specifically oil, and shift that into long-term subsidies, encouragement to those clean energy issues. If we do that, I think we'll see that kind of growth that you're talking about.

Mr. Delaney, I know you have to leave, but thank you so very much for joining us.

Also joining us tonight is Representative Higgins from the great State of New York.

We have talked here on the floor from time to time, Mr. Higgins, and you have a very serious issue about our infrastructure--or lack of good quality infrastructure in the United States. You have some plans for that. I don't know if that's what you want to talk about tonight, but I'm going to take you there either sooner or later. So please share with us your thoughts on growing jobs here in America.

Mr. Higgins, if I may interrupt you for just a second, I can't believe the number you just gave us. You said the Ryan Republican budget that will come out this week does what to infrastructure?

Mr. Higgins, you've really hit upon something that caught my attention. Also, we should be aware that this year, that is October 2012 until October 2013, we will spend $100 billion in Afghanistan.

To what effect? To have our soldiers killed by Afghan policemen? To create an ongoing conflict in that area with the people that are living there?

To what effect? $100 billion.

You talk about bringing home the soldiers, we should bring the soldiers home from Afghanistan. There will be some small unit left there to deal with al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, but it's simply not working.

Think what $100 billion could do to solve the sequestration issue, which is only $85 billion.

Mr. Higgins, you've raised, and Mr. Ryan, you've also raised the very same issue about the infrastructure. We can do this. We can really do it.

I couldn't believe that Paul Ryan's going to introduce a budget in the next couple of days that's going to take $5.7 trillion out of the infrastructure.

I often hear our Republican colleagues talk about the Founding Fathers, and we ought to hearken back to the founding fathers. And indeed we should.

His first month in office, George Washington asked Alexander Hamilton, his Treasury Secretary, to develop an industrial plan for the United States. In that plan that Hamilton produced 3 months later was an infrastructure component. It said the United States Government should support the creation of ports, canals, and roads.

So right back to the very first days of this government, we have seen the role of the Federal Government in the infrastructure sector, and that is an investment.

And one thing I'll add before I turn it back to you gentlemen is that all of that's our tax money, all tax money from all 360 million Americans, coming in in one way or another, sometimes through the Federal excise tax on gasoline or income tax or other taxes. If we used that money to buy American-made steel--I think that's near your district, isn't it, Mr. Ryan?

So we're talking about American-made steel for those bridges, or concrete or other kinds of equipment. And so if we do that, we'd create jobs in the United States.

The manufacturing sector lost 9 million jobs between 1990 and last year. This last year we've seen an additional about 600,000 new jobs coming back into manufacturing, but if we pass Buy American or Make It in America legislation, so that our tax money supports American-made products from American-made workers made in America, we can see a boom in manufacturing. It's certainly going to be important in my district, and I'm sure it is in yours.

Gentlemen, you're right on target here. These are the investments that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton said we ought to make.

Mr. Ryan, I know you have a few other things you'd like to toss into this.

Mr. Higgins.

If not now, when?

When are we going to do it? We can do these things. We can do the wind turbines for the clean energy, as Mr. Delaney was talking about, solar panels, and, of course, the transportation systems, which we're discussing here.

George Washington and Alexander Hamilton at the very start of this Nation said, Build the infrastructure. Grow the economy.

We can use that again. The President has put it out there, too. In his State of the Union speech he spoke very clearly to the advanced manufacturing centers that you talked about, Mr. Ryan. He talked about infrastructure. He's made proposals that have just been pushed aside by our Republican colleagues here, but there are proposals that would grow this economy and give us the foundation upon which we can then have additional growth.

I see that the Representative from the District of Columbia is here. Ms. Norton, thank you very much for joining us. Gentlemen, thank you very much for this evening. Eleanor Holmes Norton, thank you very much for joining us this evening.

Well, thank you very much, Representative Norton, and for your years of service here.

You were just moving to the Ryan budget, which I suspect he'll introduce maybe in the next day or two. This is the same old, same old, but this time it's worse than the old. He's talking about an austerity budget, a very stringent austerity budget on steroids that will clearly decimate the economy as those cuts are made.

You just said if the Federal Government makes a reduction, it comes right down to cities and States laying people off. We've had this growth just last month, 247,000 jobs, and here we go.

Let's understand what is being discussed by Mr. Ryan. Who are these people on Medicaid? He proposes to cut Medicaid by a third and block- grant it to the States, which means just give the States some money. But who are those people on Medicaid? Now, we call it Medi-Cal in California, but you can see that two-thirds of the Medicaid

money goes to seniors and disabled. So, Mr. Ryan, what are you doing? Who exactly are you pointing out for the reductions? You're going after seniors and the disabled.

They think it's welfare. Well, these are seniors and disabled people that can't work, or people that are retired.

So, what does it mean? It slashes that budget for seniors that provides them with nursing homes. Principally, these folks are in nursing homes. So you're going to take a third of the money out of nursing homes. Now, just what are those seniors going to do? What are they going to do? You're taking a third of the money out by 2022.

You mentioned Medicare. Oh, yeah, Medicare. Mr. Ryan, proposes to end Medicare as we know it. He's going to give seniors a voucher. They can stay on Medicare, but they have a voucher to buy Medicare. The guarantee of affordable health care, quality health care for seniors terminates with the Ryan Republican budget.

Who are those people on Medicare? Well, let's see. About 3 percent earn over $100,000 a year; 1 percent, somewhere around $90,000 to $100,000; but down here, here's where the Medicare beneficiaries are. They're earning somewhere, $10,000 to $20,000, or $30,000--right here, 28, 20, 16. You're getting up to 50 percent right there of people below $40,000. These are not wealthy people.

Medicare is there to provide people with the ability to have quality health care in their retirement years. But Mr. Ryan would end that and give them a voucher, and shift the cost to the individuals who would then have to go out and buy private health insurance.

I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years and I understand what the private insurance companies are all about. The private health insurance companies are all about their bottom-line profit. It's not people, it's profit. If that's what Mr. Ryan wants to do, we're going to fight vigorously and successfully to say no, no; the promise of Medicare is here to stay.

Exactly right. When I was young, before Medicare, we lived in a rural community, there was a county hospital. My dad took me to the county hospital to visit a rancher. We were ranchers. On the other side of the hill was another rancher that was elderly and was at the county hospital. I will remember forever in my life going to that ward with maybe 15, 20 elderly people side by side in beds, the stench. The care was almost nonexistent. Poverty was everywhere. It was worse than horrible.

But in 1964 this Nation did something very, very important. Together with Social Security, they brought seniors out of poverty because it was the medical expenses that forced them into poverty. So Medicare brought seniors out of poverty. It went from, I don't know, I think it was almost 80 percent of seniors were in poverty to a situation today where maybe 8 to 10 percent are in poverty. Social Security, Medicare; absolutely critical. But any attempt to change that goes right to the heart of our values as Americans.

We will take care of our seniors. That's not to say changes are not possible. Of course changes ought to be public. For example, we ought to be negotiating with the drug companies over the price of prescription drugs. But, oh no. When the prescription drug benefit was passed, added into it and signed by George W. Bush was a paragraph that said the Federal Government is a price taker; it cannot negotiate the price of drugs. So we spend billions and billions where it's not necessary.

Exactly.

I'm going to pick up another chart. The issue you raised is one that we really ought to chart. Let me go get another chart. Just keep going there.

I ran over and got this chart. I wasn't going to talk about this this evening, but you brought the issue up about where the money has gone and the issue of tax breaks.

This chart begins in 1979, and it shows the basic growth in income. So it starts down here in 1979, and the bottom 20 percent have really seen very, very little growth in their income. The next 20 percent, a little better, and this is the next quartile. These are the 1- percenters. We talked about the 99 percent. This is the 99 percent down here. These are the 1-percenters. These are the people that have seen extraordinary income growth. And it just happens to coincide right here, this income growth has coincided with the Bush tax cuts in the early 2000's. So we've seen this enormous percentage income, almost a 300 percent growth, 277 percent growth in their income, so that you're beginning to see the skewing of wealth in America.

This is the annual income. But if you take a look at wealth and you put another chart of wealth here, you'll see something the very same. So the rich get richer and the poor stay where they are, that old song.

Here we are. This is a result of multiple effects, but one of the principal ones is tax policy. And if Mr. Ryan's budget passes, as you have suggested, and the top tax rate goes from 39 to 25 percent, then that means that those who already have a lot will get a whole lot more. And I'm reminded of a quote by Mr. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt, and he said--this is a paraphrase. I wish I had it with me to be exact. He said: We're not measured by how much those who have get more, but rather by what we do for those who have little.

This is our great challenge. This is where the great buying power for America should be, in the bottom 99 percent, really in the bottom 50 or 60 percent.

I thank you for raising that point about the tax policy in the Ryan budget, but it will make this line just continue to go like that; and the rest, because of the elimination of the deductions, are going to see a stalling of their income.

Exactly. The President has proposed a balanced approach to sequestration, as well as to the long-term deficit plan, a combination of additional revenues, many of them from closing loopholes, and also some very wise cuts. There are things that can be done in Medicare. I talked earlier about the prescription drug benefit. But there's also the way in which Medicare is organized. The fee-for- service system encourages additional and often unnecessary procedures. There's a lot of fraud in the system. We need to deal with that. And the Affordable Care Act, interestingly enough, went right after every one of those, yet they want to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

What are they thinking? We know the Affordable Care Act works. We know that the inflation rate in Medicare, since the Affordable Care Act went into effect, has dropped precipitously. It's still growing, but it's growing slower than the general health care inflation rate in the Nation.

In decades. But we're seeing the changes.

The Affordable Care Act, a major part of that is an annual well person visit to the doctor, so critically important. Why? What's your blood pressure? How's your sugar? What's happening in your life? Can we prevent you from getting diabetes? Can we give you some really--some cheap pills to keep your blood pressure down, or are we going to have the blood pressure go up so you get a stroke and pay big-time for years and years with disabilities and medical care?

So the Affordable Care Act has the right incentives in it to bend the cost curve. And it is. It is actually working.

I notice that our time is nearly over. If you'd like a few closing comments, I'm going to end in just a few moments, too.

From Washington, D.C., your leadership in this community has been known for some time. I thank you very much for joining us tonight.

I want to do two things before I end. First of all, Medicare is back on the table. The Ryan budget takes up Medicare once again and provides a voucher which will basically destroy it.

I used this last time around. I'm going to change this. It says, Medicare 1965--that was President Johnson--until 2013; created by LBJ, destroyed by the GOP. I don't think so. Seniors don't want it. Americans don't want it. In the last campaign for the Presidency, this was one of the major issues, and yet Mr. Ryan is coming back with it. Bad idea, bad timing.

I want to end with this. This is a great country. There is no other place in the world like the United States. It is one terrific country. There's enormous energy in this country, the energy where people want to get a job, they want to go to work, businesses want to grow, and they want to hire people. All of that is waiting for Congress to get its act together, to get the sequestration out of the way, which is an austerity budget that has 750,000 jobs to be lost in it, get that out of the way. Look at the balanced proposal, as the President has suggested. End some tax loopholes. Make some cuts. Make wise, thoughtful cuts. And it's possible. It can be done, and it should be done.

Along the way, we can grow the economy. We can, once again, ``Make it in America.'' Because when we make things in America, when we use our tax money to buy American-made equipment, supplies, and products, we're creating jobs here. We're putting people back to work.

George Washington said we ought to do it. Alexander Hamilton as Treasury Secretary said we ought to do it. And we, the Democrats, say we ought to do this. We ought to have a buy American.

Mr. Rahall, the ranking member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has made it clear that, as a major part of the new transportation bill, there's going to be a major ``Make it in America'' component so that we're buying American-made goods once again. He's supported by every one of the ranking members of every subcommittee, and I add myself to that list.

For the last 3 years, I've carried specific bills that say our tax money, transportation tax money, would be used to buy American trucks, buses, bridges, and steel made here in America. If you're going to put up a solar panel on your house or a wind turbine and you expect a subsidy--and you should have one--then it should be an American-made solar panel or wind turbine.

We can make it in America when Americans, once again, make it. So, that's our message. Our message is to be wise about the cuts. Yes, we're going to make cuts. Balance it with appropriate revenue increases, which should be basically the elimination of many of the unnecessary subsidies that go out even to American corporations still receiving subsidies for offshoring jobs. No more. The President was right. Give a break to American companies that bring jobs back to the United States.

All of this is possible. This is what we are here for, 435 of us in the House of Representatives, to set policy. Mr. Delaney talked about education, technology, energy policy, and we were joined this evening by our other friends, Mr. Higgins from New York, Mr. Ryan from Ohio, and Ms. Norton from Washington, D.C. It's been a good evening.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; accordingly (at 8 o'clock and 10 minutes p.m.), under its previous order, the House adjourned until tomorrow, Wednesday, March 13, 2013, at 10 a.m. for morning-hour debate.

Mr. Speaker, the climate is changing. Climate change is very, very real. You only have to look at the superstorms we have had, Sandy and others, and the $180 billion of destruction that has been wrought upon us from the environment just over the last 2 years.

The climate is changing, and there's something we can do about it. In fact, there's something this House of Representatives must do about it, and that is to move forcefully, directly, and aggressively to clean energy policies. We ought to be subsidizing those clean energy systems that are out there--solar and wind.

In my own district in Solano County, we have one of the biggest wind farms. My own history goes back to 1978, when I authored legislation for State tax credits. We can and we must deal with climate change, and we can do it with clean energy policies.

I rise today to tell the story of how northern California communities that I represent will be harmed by sequestration.

Travis Air Force Base in my district makes sure that the equipment and personnel that our military needs are delivered quickly and safely around the world. They're the world's first responder when disaster strikes. Thirty-two hundred civilians will be furloughed beginning next week. They will have a loss of some $30 million of income over the next 6 months.

Near Marysville, California, Beale Air Force Base operates an intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission that supplies our Nation's military with timely information to save American lives on the battlefield. Fourteen hundred civilians will be furloughed, with $13 million in lost wages.

Families and their income are important. But so is national security, which will be compromised by sequestration.

Yuba City, one of the major places in the United States prone to flood problems, will see their critical levee protection that the Army Corps of Engineers is working on delayed and not completed for next winter's floods.

The University of California-Davis will similarly be harmed.

It's time to end sequestration, and I ask unanimous consent that H.R. 699 be brought up for a vote.

I thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's good, it is very, very good that the new 113th Congress acted today to reach out in sympathy, compassion, and with real support to the people who were so severely impacted by Superstorm Sandy.

One of our colleagues, just a moment ago, spoke about this Nation being at a crossroad. And indeed, we cross paths many, many times and there are many different crossroads. The people of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and other parts of this great Nation here on the east coast came to a crossroads. That crossroads was 97 days ago when Superstorm Sandy came ashore and whacked and destroyed, pummeled and, indeed, killed Americans.

Today, the House of Representatives, not unanimously, unfortunately, but by a strong majority of Democrats and some Republicans, stood tall and said we are one Nation. We're one Nation, and when one of us is harmed, we'll stand with that person. When one State is harmed, we'll stand with that State, and we will come together, just as my colleague said a moment ago, we will come together to provide what is needed to rebuild, to sustain, to provide, so that they who have been harmed can carry on.

There's a lesson here for all of us, and tonight my Democratic colleagues and I will talk about the lesson that Superstorm Sandy brought to this Nation. Certainly one of those lessons has been fulfilled today. As a great Nation, we will provide what is needed for the rebuilding, for the immediate needs, even though it is 97 days late. We will provide because we are a compassionate Nation.

But there's also another lesson here, and that lesson is for this entire Nation to get ahead of the next disaster. It will come. It'll be another storm up the east coast or into the gulf. It'll be an earthquake in my State of California or a flood or a fire. But there will be yet another natural disaster of one sort or another, perhaps man-made, perhaps Mother Nature.

What we must do as a Nation is to get ahead of that, to prepare ourselves not only with emergency responses, but more and just as important, to prepare the infrastructure to protect the lives and the property of the citizens of this Nation. That's the second lesson of Superstorm Sandy. Build the infrastructure to prepare for the next flood, the next hurricane, the next onslaught of Mother Nature. We can do it. And in so doing, we not only reduce the cost of that next storm, that next flood, but we also save the lives of Americans, and we put people to work right now.

This Nation is not yet fully recovered from the recession of 2008. This Nation has not yet fully brought Americans back to work, and we can do so taking the lesson of this day's action here on the floor of the House of Representatives where we, at least most of us, voted to build for the future, voted to put in place those infrastructure improvements, not for yesterday, not to rebuild just what was there that was destroyed, but, rather, to build for the future onslaught of a storm coming into New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, or other parts of this Nation.

To be prepared. The Boy Scout motto: Be prepared. Benjamin Franklin: An ounce of prevention is worth a dollar of cure. These are truisms that have been with us forever, and today we want to talk about infrastructure investment, the kind of things that were done here on the floor, some $33 billion going not only for immediate relief, but to build the infrastructure necessary to protect and prepare for the next storm.

Joining me today in this discussion, at least at the outset, is my colleague from New York, Paul Tonko. We often meet here on the floor. We sometimes call this the East Coast/West Coast show. I'm from California. Representative Tonko is from New York.

And you were there, not only for this storm, but for the previous storm, and that was less than 18 months ago. Let's talk about these things, Mr. Tonko.

Thank you, Mr. Tonko. The bill now is out of this House. It's over in the Senate. We expect the Senate to pass it probably tomorrow or the next day, certainly before the inaugural on Monday, and then the President will undoubtedly sign it shortly thereafter, bringing that kind of relief.

You mentioned the job issue, and people need to go to work. When we have these natural disasters, and we come forward with the kind of support that we have seen today, and will soon be available for New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and the surrounding areas, people go back to work. Those people that have received immediate FEMA support for housing, for clothing, for food, that money's immediately spent into the economy.

On the infrastructure side, it's crucial. When the subways of Lower Manhattan flooded, the world's financial institutions took a whack because it was shut down for several days. People couldn't get to work, and so the entire world's economy slowed down, costing billions of dollars beyond just the damage.

Now, part of the infrastructure, part of the bill that was passed today, the infrastructure improvements are to harden, to prepare Manhattan and the surrounding areas, the beach communities and others, for the next storm, to put up the seawalls.

Now, what does that mean?

Well, it means that the ounce of prevention and the pound of cure have taken place, but it also means people are going to go to work.

Let me refer to this chart here. This is from Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, and the former economic adviser to John McCain. His analysis, and this is generally agreed to by most economists, is that for every dollar invested in infrastructure, you get $1.57 back into the American

economy. So you're not just putting a dollar in. You're getting the American economy going. You're putting people to work.

Those people will then be able to pay taxes, buy food, support their families, and build for tomorrow's disaster, putting in place the infrastructure that is hardened, that is protected, eliminating the potential, in this specific case, of flooding of the subway systems in New York City.

I know that you talked about doing this in your area for the storm. You may want to pick that back up, and then I want to come back and talk about my own district in California.

You're speaking of something that is very close I know to your heart. I've heard you speak on this issue some months ago about some of the historic buildings that date back to the pre-Revolutionary War era in New York.

And it's interesting to note that in this Sandy legislation that passed the House today there are numerous reforms, improvements on the way in which the Federal Emergency Management System works, so that the historic resources can be rebuilt and maintained, so that that sense of history, that sense of our past and who we are as Americans is going to be there for future generations. Some of the old rules and regulations made it virtually impossible to do that.

There's also in this legislation other reforms that allow the projects and homes and businesses to be rebuilt in a way that protects them from the future storms and the increased storms that you so aptly described.

Let me just take this home to my district. I represent the Central Valley of California, the great Sacramento Valley, 200 miles of it, literally from the beginning of San Francisco Bay 200 miles up the Sacramento River. And probably, I haven't been able to count all the levees in my district, but I probably have well over 1,500 miles of levees that protect large cities, medium size cities, farms and other critical assets and infrastructure in the State of California. For example, the intercontinental rail system both north and south, intercontinental highway systems, universities, international airports. These critical assets are at risk of flooding.

The Army Corps of Engineers is taking a look at the levees in one part of my district. The Natomas Basin, which is part of the city of Sacramento, judges those levees to have a 1 in 30 chance of failure, so that over a 30-year period of time it's anticipated there will be a catastrophic failure of those levees. One hundred thousand lives just in that part of Sacramento at immediate risk because those floodwaters--should those levees fail, it would be a repeat of what happened in New Orleans, only the water is deeper and the floodwaters would rush in, at least as fast, if not faster. A monumental disaster, international airport gone, highways gone and on and on.

We need to get ahead of that. We need to build that infrastructure, those levees, to protect those assets. A penny of prevention, a pound of savings.

So these are the kind of things that we can do. And there are ways we can do this. Yes, it may run up the immediate deficit. But once again, for every dollar that we invest in those levees we not only save lives and property, but we put people to work and we get the economic engine going.

Further up in my district, again along the Sacramento and the Feather Rivers, I have a project that's 44 miles of levee that clearly will fail. It has failed four times in the last 60 years. Lives have been lost. One of the most catastrophic failures of a levee happened in this stretch of river. We need to rebuild that.

The Federal Government's role in the construction projects of these levees has gone back to the very beginning of this Nation. And it is Congress' task to allocate the money, to decide the projects that are going to be built. But unfortunately, we've tied ourselves in knots here with certain rules that have been put in by our Republican colleagues that prevent us from taking the necessary action to protect our communities.

We're not talking about willy-nilly unnecessary projects; we're talking about saving lives and property. This is how we should be acting. Rebuilding after a storm to a higher standard, building before the storm to protect our people, the people that we represent.

These are critical issues, these are infrastructure projects, and we need to get on top of this and push these projects forward. Yes, it will cost money, but not nearly as much as the cost of a levee failure because we failed to act in time.

I would like to move in just a moment to the issue of how we can actually help other parts of our economy grow as we build our infrastructure. But before I do I am just thinking about the previous discussion from our Republican colleagues where they talked about the deficit and the deficit and we ought to eliminate government programs.

Certainly there are government programs that are neither efficient, effective, or necessary, and, yes, those should be cut. But when you start talking about infrastructure this is something that we really must do.

It was said that for an expenditure of some $15 billion New York City could have protected its subway system and the shoreline from the devastation of two major storms, one that occurred a year ago and another one that occurred just 97 days or 3 months ago, Superstorm Sandy.

So if we get ahead of these disasters and build the necessary protections, for example in my district if we build those levees, yes, it will cost money. For the Natomas area it's about $1 billion. Very expensive, no doubt about it.

But if we do not protect and do not build those levees the devastation will amount to several times that amount of money. That's precisely what happened in Manhattan and in the New York City area.

So again, you spend that money up front, yes, you put people to work, yes, there may be an immediate issue of where and how we fund it, and that's a legitimate issue, but fail to do it and then the cost is horrendous. And, yes, if the State, the Federal, the local governments, the individuals, that will all be an expense that they have to endure. And Superstorm Sandy, the bill we saw today, is precisely on that.

Now, having said that, let's talk about the broader subject. You mentioned Build American Bonds just a moment ago. The Build American Bonds were part of the stimulus program, now almost 4 years old.

That program created a new mechanism to assist local governments in providing the funding to build infrastructure--very, very successful in putting people back to work. We could extend that. In doing so, we will put people back to work. We will build the infrastructures, whether those are highways or bridges or whatever.

As we do that, one of our favorite topics that we've talked on this floor many, many times about is this: We can Make It in America. We use our taxpayer money to make and to spend that money on American-made products. So the steel in the bridges, the concrete, the other design elements are American jobs. And as we do that, we rebuild the American manufacturing base.

You've talked about this extensively. You go back in history, but go for it.

Last year, you and I talked--or last Congress, which was last year, you and I talked about this Make It in America, this manufacturing. We spent a lot of time talking about it. I had introduced in that session of Congress legislation that would require that our tax money--at least 85 percent of it--be spent on American- made products and equipment.

Let's take the Superstorm Sandy situation. We know that, for example, Amtrak is receiving, I think, a little over $150 million to repair its tracks that were damaged by Superstorm Sandy. Those are jobs--men and women will be working--but it's also steel, it's electrical wires, it's consultants, and it will undoubtedly be various kinds of electrical systems that will be used by Amtrak in rebuilding, similarly with regard to the subways in New York.

Now, if we were able to write into the Superstorm Sandy legislation that 85 percent of that money that's used on rebuilding the infrastructure came from American-made products--in other words, Buy America--then that would not only put people back to work, but it would stimulate the steel industry, the electrical industry, and certainly the consultants, engineers, and architects. So I'm going to reintroduce that legislation--too late now for Superstorm Sandy, but there will be other legislation.

For example, we know that we're going to have to rewrite a new transportation bill in this session. There's a 2-year bill that's now in place. It will expire at the end of the 213th Congress, so we're going to need to redo that. We should write into that transportation legislation--where we will spend $50

billion, $60 billion a year to build transportation systems--a clause like my bill that says that's taxpayer money; let's use that taxpayer money to buy American-made equipment and supplies, putting Americans back to work and using that to rebuild the American manufacturing sector along the lines that you describe, not with yesterday's technology, but with advanced manufacturing.

You couldn't be more correct. You used the word ``holistic,'' meaning whole and in total, a total package. For years I've said that to have a growing economy and a just social environment, we needed to make, as Americans, critical investments. You hit three of those critical investments.

You talked about research--absolutely critical investment in the future growth of the economy and to solve today and tomorrow's problems. That's research, most of which, interestingly, is funded either directly by the Federal Government through the National Institutes of Health or Defense Research Agency, DARPA, or one of the other Federal agencies, or indirectly through the research tax credit that we provide for businesses to engage in research.

So research is one of the key investments that lead to economic growth. You mentioned the second one, very interesting, and that's education. A well educated workforce will be competitive across the world. That's a critical, perhaps the most critical, investment. Again, a role for the Federal Government, certainly a role for States and local governments, but a role for the American society that cannot be ignored--research, education.

You drew it very, very correctly, and that is the manufacturing that comes from that. Manufacturing matters. How do you do that? You need to be in front of it; and when you talked about the research and the manufacturing technology, you were spot on. That's the third critical investment. The fourth one we also talked about here is infrastructure. So these are four of the critical investments that we need to make as a society.

Some of that falls on individual companies, encouraged by a research tax credit or encouraged by Buy America. In different ways, we can encourage the manufacturing tax policy, which is critically important. We did that. Actually, it was a Democratic proposal. We did it 3 years ago. We've continued it. We've continued it in the recent fiscal cliff legislation where we provided 100 percent write-off for capital investment.

That was from the Democrats. We care about business, and so we said, grow your business. We will provide you with a 100 percent write-off in the first year of capital equipment that you put in place. Not depreciation over 3, 4, 7, 15 years, but rather immediate, an enormous benefit to business. So we want the businesses to invest so that they can Make It in America.

There are two more critical elements. I'll go through them very, very quickly. Provide for the national defense wisely. I think the public knows by now that we're spending $100 billion in Afghanistan this year--$100 billion. We need to bring it back home. We need to end that war. Thankfully, the President has set us off on a course where we will end American offensive action and move to supporting the Afghan Government in the spring of this year.

Mr. President, we're thankful that you put that policy. Now let's bring the rest of it home, $100 billion. We need that money here. So we need national defense, but we need to be really wise about how we spend our money.

Finally, the fifth thing is this: we need to change. We need to be willing to change. Thank you for bringing up the first three of those. But this is how we invest in the future, and these are policies that we need to put forward. They're the critical foundation for economic and social growth.

If I might interrupt you for just a moment. This had to be 6 or 7 years ago, I was Lieutenant Governor of California, and 3M, the manufacturing company, came in to talk about exactly that issue; and they had researched and developed a new conductor that was 30 percent more efficient in passing those electrons down the line. Think about what we could do in America to improve our energy capability by putting that in place; and if that were made in America, we could not only improve the energy efficiency. We would increase the capacity of our electrical system by 30 percent simply by rewiring those conductors across this Nation. That's American manufacturing, research and manufacturing. Put it in the infrastructure and build our strong economy. Great example.

Well, we have a little bit more time. I think it's about time for us to wrap all of this into one piece. And I will take the first shot at it, and then if you would be so kind as to finish it up.

I'm thinking of Chicago. It's not my territory. It's a long way from California. It's a beautiful city, a very dynamic city. At the turn of the previous century, in the late 1800s, they had an architect, a city architect, Burnham, and he wrote: Think no small thought for it stirs not the heart of man. Very interesting. We ought to add women to that equation now. But what he said is that when we rebuild this city, we need to build big. We need to think bold thoughts. We need to think about the greatness that could exist if we step forward.

Earlier in the previous hour we heard about the exact opposite. We heard about inward, thinking small, we are not going to reach out and fulfill the great potential of this Nation. Instead, we're going to retreat. We're not going to allow government to be part of the greatness of our future; but, instead, we're going to make it smaller and less viable. And those five things that I talked about, education, that's a public investment. Infrastructure is both public and private. But the public side is critical.

You look at manufacturing, manufacturing has always been private; but it has also relied upon the public sector. And if we use our tax dollars to buy American-made products, we are causing the manufacturing sector to grow, to blossom and to innovate and to be even greater than it is today. In developing the research, that's both public and private, but it is largely a public sector investment. So we can deal with this by investing, by thinking boldly about what it is we can do and, in doing so, make certain that everything we invest in publicly is necessary, that it is run efficiently, and that its outcome is effective, and that it fulfills the goal for which it was designed.

Those should be our watchwords: efficient, effective, necessary, and bold. Think no small thought. This is America. This is the world's greatest country perhaps ever, and it was created by bold thinking, both public and private working together in a synergy that created this incredible Nation.

I'm excited. I'm excited here in the very early days of the 113th Congress. I know we're going to have some big battles over debt limits and the like. But as we go through those fights, I want us to be bold. I want us to be big in our thinking. I want us to fulfill the great potential of this Nation. And I know we can do it. I know we can do it.

It's always a pleasure to work with you, Mr. Tonko.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. 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 the subject of tonight's Special Order.

Before I get into the issues that I want to talk about, I want to also reach out to Jay. Since nobody from this side of the aisle has yet spoken, I'd like to do so.

About 3 years ago, I started doing Special Order hours, and always Jay would come up to me during the floor session and ask me what we had planned and share with me the Republican plans for the Special Order hour. And we'd work it out: Will you take the full hour, yes or no? Probably 40 minutes, maybe less. That was so we would have a smooth transition from the Republican Special Order hour or the other way around, Democrat to Republican. It has been a great pleasure to work with you, Jay. You do a great job here.

I could echo everything that's been said, but I really don't know all of the intricacies on your side. I do know that when they involve our side of the aisle, you're there to make it a smooth transition and to make it work. It was a pleasure working with you, and I'll miss you along with, I'm sure, every other Member of this House. So Godspeed and best wishes to you in your retirement.

Thank you very much, Jay.

Many things have happened over the last several days. We've got the fiscal cliff, but we've also had not only the retirement of very special people in the lives of the House of Representatives and the Senate, but also the recent death of Senator Inouye, which marks the passage of the generation that fought in World War II.

I've been asked, and I'll gladly yield whatever time our colleague, Colleen Hanabusa of Hawaii, would like to take in memory of an extraordinary Senator.

I had the pleasure of working with him in the mid-90s when I was the Deputy Secretary of the Department of the Interior. We were working on the Native Hawaiian lands issues. He was a remarkable individual, one that not only understood the intricacies of that very complex situation, but also had enormous passion for the Native Hawaiians.

So tonight I yield whatever time she might want to take to Colleen Hanabusa, our colleague from the great State of Hawaii.

In Memory of Senator Daniel K. Inouye

The eulogy that was just given is most appropriate. There are men and women of extraordinary talent that have served in this Capitol, and certainly, Senator Inouye fits that. There is also a fiscal cliff out there, and I know the Senator was

working diligently on that before his last days. Here, too, in the House of Representatives, we also should be working diligently on that.

It seems as though we are not making as much progress as we should. We have about 10 days now. Actually, I guess it's 12, 13 days. We go to January 3, so it's 16 days before the fiscal cliff actually occurs. Between now and then, we have a great challenge. We have the well-being of this Nation, the world's strongest and, in many, many ways, the world's greatest Nation. It doesn't really hang in the balance, but its well-being in the years ahead will be largely determined by how well we address this challenge of the fiscal cliff. It's the deficit. Will we be able to put in place a solid plan that over the course of, perhaps, a decade addresses the deficit and brings it under control and begins to reduce it? I know we can. We've done it before.

We did it in the 1990s when President Clinton made a proposal that would raise taxes and reduce expenditures. It led during that period of time to a surplus, a surplus that was dramatically altered when the George W. Bush administration came in and started two wars and enormous tax cuts simultaneously, and it led to a deficit that was extraordinarily increased as the Great Recession took place in 2008. We need to turn that around.

President Obama has made a very solid set of proposals during the course of the campaign, one in which taxes for a couple would go up over $250,000 of adjusted gross income; all of their income below that would continue to have the tax reduction. He also made very substantial proposals to reduce expenditures. Those are now being negotiated in a back-and-forth between Speaker Boehner and the President. He also made some very important proposals to grow the economy--significant investments in infrastructure, significant investments in research, in education, in the fundamental investments that create ongoing growth in the economy.

I'm not sure how this is going to work out, but here on the Democratic side of the aisle we have some principles that we want to lay down, and tonight we will discuss those principles. We've done this before--we've talked about Medicare, we've talked about Social Security, we've talked about laying down the investments.

Joining me tonight will be my colleagues from around this Nation. I want to start with Jason Altmire, who has talked to these issues many times and who wants to present to us our view as Democrats.

Jason, if you will take the floor and speak to these issues.

Mr. Altmire, thank you very much for moving this issue along.

I've used this placard before when we were discussing the Republican budget that did pass this House that would end Medicare as we know it. That was just a way of doing it with vouchers or with what they call premium support. Either way, Medicare as a guarantee of health care for those people 65 and over would be over. Now, there are other ways that Medicare can be whittled away, weakened to the point where it could simply die of malnutrition. We want to be quite certain that this doesn't happen and that this tombstone never comes to pass. It was 1965 that President Lyndon Johnson signed Medicare into existence, and we're not going to let it end in 2011 or 2012 or beyond.

I recall so vividly an experience as a child, I was probably, I don't know, 10, 12 years old. My father took me to the county hospital, which is where the elderly went to die. There was no Medicare then. It didn't exist. More than half of the seniors were in poverty. There was no health care available to them. No insurance company would insure the elderly. They were expensive. And so there was literally no way that they would be able to get health care except at the county hospital, a ward strung out as far as my eye could see, beds on both sides, the stench unbelievable. The moaning and the crying that was going on unbelievable.

In 1965, America took a step to become a compassionate Nation where we would take care of the elderly. And so

proposals have been bandied about, the Republican budget basically terminating Medicare or whittling away at it in various ways, most recently to increase the eligibility age from 65 to 67. What is a person to do when they're 65 and cannot get private insurance? And at the same time, they want to do away with the opportunity that exists in the Affordable Care Act for an exchange that could possibly provide insurance, but they want to do away with that. Come on. Come on. This is America where we take care of the elderly and we provide the services.

Medicare can be dealt with. We can deal with the inflation in Medicare and in the Affordable Care Act. Many, many things were done to start on that process, for example, keeping seniors healthy, providing for the annual medical checkup; making sure that they had the drug benefits, making sure that the drug benefit part D was available to all seniors; closing the doughnut hole in the Medicare part D drug benefit; electronic medical records; infection rates in hospitals being reduced.

I'm going to take just 2 seconds to show you what has happened as a result of the Affordable Care Act and other measures.

The inflation rate in Medicare has been dramatically reduced since the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, went into effect. It is down in the 2, 2\1/2\ percent range now and has remained there since ObamaCare went into effect.

The changes in ObamaCare extended the viability, the financial viability of Medicare by 8 years, and here's the effect. The inflation rate is now less than the general health care inflation rate, and this has caused a recalculation of the deficit in the years ahead. The deficit in the years ahead was based on an inflation rate up here in the 5 percent range, but when it's down in the 2 percent range, the deficit has been reduced by over $200 billion simply because Medicare is not inflating, growing as fast as anticipated back 2\1/2\ years ago.

More can be done without taking away one benefit from seniors. The Federal Government could negotiate drug prices, bringing down the cost. The Federal Government could institute better payment mechanisms so there is a continuity of care rather than a one-off episodic care for seniors. In so doing, seniors stay healthier longer and the inflation rate and the cost are reduced. There are many other things.

But let me be very clear about this. If there is an effort to throw seniors who become 65 off of Medicare by denying them the opportunity, we will see an increase in the total cost of health care in the United States, because those seniors will not be able to get quality medical care. They will become sick and they will wind up somewhere in the system, perhaps in an emergency room, somewhere in the hospital, and the total cost of the system will go up. But if you keep seniors on Medicare, when they become 65, they will have access to quality care, better health care. And with the changes that were in the Affordable Care Act, ObamaCare, they will be healthier longer and the cost of care will be reduced for all of us in the health care system.

Now, I suspect we'll come back to Medicare before this night is done, but we ought to talk about jobs for awhile. We were on this floor a few weeks ago, and we spent some time talking about infrastructure, about jobs, and our colleague from the State of New York, that is the western side of New York, is joining us tonight to pick up that issue once again.

Well, let's continue this discussion of infrastructure. The last time we took this up 3 weeks ago, we had talked about an infrastructure bank, a proposal that's been presented to the House of Representatives now for at least 15 years. I believe our colleague from Connecticut, Rosa DeLauro, has introduced that bill year after year.

You said that the Federal Government can borrow money, 10-year notes, even 15-year notes somewhere around a percent and a half, maybe towards 2 percent. If we were to borrow that, put it into an infrastructure bank, and then loan money to infrastructure projects that have a cash flow, sanitation facility, water facility, toll bridges, and numerous other kinds of infrastructure which are desperately needed, we could have a financing system that, over time, would actually make money for the Federal Government, could borrow at 1\1/2\ percent, loan at 1\3/4\ percent, have a margin there. The money would flow back in. You'd get that revolving.

The President has actually proposed this in his American Jobs Act. He's picked this up during his debate, the fiscal cliff negotiations, put it back on the table.

We ought to be doing that. In doing so, we will create tens of thousands, indeed hundreds of thousands, of American jobs, American jobs. And if we couple that with Buy American, so that the equipment, the steel, the concrete, the other ingredients used in these infrastructure projects were American-made, using our tax money for American-made equipment, we would even see a resurgence of the manufacturing base in America.

This is a no-brainer. This is something we ought to have done years ago. But here, as we approach this fiscal cliff, we ought to take up the President's challenge, move forward with an infrastructure bank and create jobs in America and build the foundation for economic growth.

Mr. Altmire, why don't you pick this piece up and carry it.

Indeed, we do need to invest in infrastructure and we need to rebuild.

I noticed another colleague from the great State of New York has joined us. Often Mr. Tonko and I are here on the floor in what we call the East-West Show.

But Mr. Higgins and Mr. Tonko, your State and the State of New Jersey got whacked by a superstorm.

Why don't you share with us a little bit of what the State of New York needs to do on infrastructure repair and how to prevent it from happening again.

Thank you very much, Mr. Tonko.

Mr. Higgins, I see that you would like to get into this also. I know that you're there. So please pick up this conversation and carry it on.

I thank you very much for bringing that up. It's not only an issue on the east coast; it's an issue in the Midwest, it's an issue in the West, it's an issue all across this Nation. The climate is changing. The storms are more severe and are likely to continue to be even more severe in the future. For me, my district is 200 miles of the Sacramento River. The second most city at risk of flooding in the United States after New Orleans is Sacramento. The Natomas portion of Sacramento and certain portions along the American River in Sacramento are in extraordinarily dangerous territory. We need to rebuild our levees. We need to upgrade our levees. We should not wait until they break and then try to deal with the death, the destruction, and the rebuilding that then occurs, but do exactly what you said, Mr. Higgins, and that is anticipate the next storm. Build ahead of it. Protect ourselves ahead of it.

I have some 1,500 to 2,000 miles of flood levees in my district. We need serious infrastructure improvement. Just this last week, Friday, I was in the Yuba City area of Sutter County. Forty miles of levee need to be upgraded and improved. We need action by the Federal Government. The Army Corps of Engineers needs to issue the 408 permit in a big hurry so that we can begin the construction of the improvements of those levees. And that's not unusual across this Nation because many other parts of this Nation, including the rebuilding of New York and New Jersey, need to build higher standards--and not just repair what was damaged, but to build to a higher standard. That takes money. And this is where the Federal Government has a critical role to play. We need to make that money available.

In some cases, there are repayment systems. We talked about that with an infrastructure bank. In other cases, there are not, and the local governments, together with the State and Federal Government, come together and build those systems.

But the Federal Government has to step forward as the major partner in all of these. And if we do it in a way that uses the money to buy American-made equipment and supplies, we can create even more jobs in America.

Part of the Make It America agenda that we have been promoting now for 2 years is just that--you use that money to buy American-made equipment and you rebuild the American manufacturing base at the same time that you build the infrastructure.

Mr. Altmire, you stood up with enthusiasm while I was speaking. So what do you have here?

Well, we actually need to do that, but why don't we wrap up the infrastructure here and then I do want to spend a few moments talking about Social Security and perhaps ending back to where we started on Medicare and these programs.

Thank you, Mr. Tonko. Once again, we have a challenge ahead of us.

Mr. Higgins, I know that this has been one of your principal issues here in the House of Representatives. If you would like to wrap up on this piece of our discussion tonight, on the infrastructure piece, then we will take the final 10 to 15 minutes and pick back up to the Medicare and Social Security issues that are also very much part of what is on the table today as we address the fiscal cliff, growing the economy, and jobs.

You're absolutely correct that if we're to deal with the deficit, we have to put Americans back to work. The infrastructure has, over the years, been a principal way in which you employ Americans--we did this with the stimulus bill and it had great effect-- but it also builds the foundation for tomorrow's economic growth and protects people along the way. It protects property; it protects valuable assets that we have in our Nation.

The President has been very clear about this for more than 15 months now. Fifteen months ago he put before Congress the American Jobs Act, one element of which was the infrastructure. He wanted an additional $50 billion over and above the $53 billion that you described earlier, Mr. Higgins, as the ongoing infrastructure.

Our colleague here, we talked earlier--I think Mr. Higgins you raised this issue, and Mr. Tonko did also--Thursday, two days from now, we're going to take up the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the plan for our national security, the military. In that piece of legislation there is a minimum of $88 billion to be spent between October 2012 and September 30 of 2013 on the Afghanistan war, $88 billion. That's a lot of money.

All that we're talking about in this cut discussion that's under way between the President and Mr. Boehner is somewhere, $400 billion, maybe $500 billion; $88 billion in Afghanistan next year. A good portion of that is for infrastructure in Afghanistan, as was discussed earlier today.

We know how to make decisions here. Part of those decisions that are on the table today are very serious cuts to the Medicare program. I discussed earlier the Medicare eligibility age has been proposed by the Speaker of the House on the Republican side to be increased from 65 to 67 years. It will have a disastrous effect on those who have paid into Medicare their entire working lives and expect to be able to have that health care benefit available to them when they become 65.

It will not save much money, but it will surely harm thousands upon thousands of Americans.

Similarly, suggestions have been made to dramatically alter Social Security. Suggestions that will significantly harm a vast number of Americans--perhaps, I don't know the numbers--probably 20 million Americans who are currently obtaining Social Security benefits but will not see the adjustment for inflation. These are people that are receiving less than $1,500 a month for Social Security. And for many of them, for many of them that is their total source of income.

Mr. Altmire, you have been a person that knows the statistics here and knows the numbers. I speak more from my heart rather than the precise numbers, so my colleagues, let's join in this conversation about Social Security. I think the starting point comes from the compassion that we should all possess for seniors, but the facts also need to be understood here.

One fact should be clear to all 435 Members in this House, and that is that the deficit that we are facing and all the discussion about the deficit and the fiscal cliff is not a Social Security problem. It is not a Social Security problem. It is a tax revenue issue which we've talked here a little bit about. It is an issue for Medicare, which we can solve without cutting benefits. It's an issue for the military, the war in Iraq, the $88 billion that we're going to spend there in the next 9 months. Those are real issues about the deficit.

Social Security does not contribute one nickel, one penny to the deficit. It is a trust fund apart from this deficit issue. It has its own source of revenue, and we ought not be harming seniors while we are giving continuing tax breaks to people that are making lots of money. Let's get this straight: Social Security should not be on the table as we discuss this issue.

Now, we know 8 years from now, 7 years, maybe 9 years from now, Social Security has to be adjusted because of the continuing number of people that are coming on.

Are we out of time just as I'm getting wound up on Social Security?

I think we are finished for this evening.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor Sergeant Kauffman, Captain Mihelich, Officer Blasingame, and Officer Golez of Fairfield, California.

Sergeant Kauffman will retire after nearly 30 years of law enforcement service with the City of Fairfield. He was hired as a Public Safety Officer with the Fairfield Police Department on July 5, 1983. Sergeant Kauffman served the community in a number of non- emergency patrol functions while putting himself through the police academy. After graduation, he was re-hired as a Police Officer on June 30, 1986 where he worked in various capacities that included Patrol, Investigations, Solano Narcotics Enforcement Team (Sol-NET), and Field Training. Sergeant Kauffman earned the Police Officer of the Quarter award in November 1999 for his reliability and commitment to community service. On December 31, 1999, he was promoted to Police Corporal and then earned the City Manager's Commendation on July 28, 2003 for his contributions and dedication to the City's Driver Training program.

On March 3, 2006, Sergeant Kauffman was promoted to Police Sergeant and ultimately supervised a number of different units including Patrol, Professional Standards, and Major Crimes. In 2009, as the Police Department experienced changes in leadership and command staff, he stepped in and assisted City management in filling the gaps. Sergeant Kauffman assumed the Police Lieutenant's position and managed Patrol Operations for several months. He has a can-do attitude and he consistently provides quality service to the community.

Sergeant Kauffman has been a valued employee and leader, and his commitment to the community was evidenced on a daily basis. He was a loyal representative of the law enforcement community and admired for his hard work, dedication, and positive work ethic.

Captain Mihelich will retire after nearly 29 years of law enforcement service, with 25 years of that service to the City of Fairfield. After serving over three years as a Reserve Officer and Police Officer with the South San Francisco Police Department, Captain Mihelich was hired as a Police Officer with the Fairfield Police Department on October 12, 1987. As an officer, he worked in various capacities that included Patrol, Investigations, Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), Special Operations, Gang Suppression, Special Activity Felony Enforcement (SAFE) Team, and Field Training.

Captain Mihelich was promoted to Police Corporal on December 31, 1999 and then to Police Sergeant on December 28, 2001. He skillfully mentored and supervised units in Patrol and Training & Personnel, and was named Manager of the Year in 2006. After being promoted to Lieutenant on June 6, 2008, Captain Mihelich served as a Commander for Patrol, Quality of Life, and Administrative Services Bureaus. He was a strong and decisive leader and as the Police Department experienced changes in leadership and command staff, he consistently stepped in and assisted City management in filling the gaps. He assumed the Police Captain's position and managed the Support Services Division beginning in April 2011 before being formally promoted on February 10, 2012.

Capitan Mihelich has been a valued employee and leader, and his commitment to the City and community was evidenced on a daily basis. He was a loyal representative of the law enforcement community and admired for his hard work, dedication, and positive work ethic. Captain Mihelich is commended for his selfless contribution to Fairfield and its constituents.

Officer Blasingame will retire after 30 years of law enforcement service, with 23 years of that service to the City of Fairfield. After serving seven years as a Correctional Officer and Deputy Sheriff with the Solano County Sheriff's Office, he was hired as a Police Officer with the Fairfield Police Department on September 25, 1989, and served the community in a number of capacities within the Patrol and Investigations Bureaus.

Officer Blasingame has received numerous commendations from citizens and coworkers for his consistent and skillful performance. Some of his most significant contributions to the Police Department have been sharing his knowledge and experience of solid investigative skills, exceptional memory, and quality reporting techniques with fellow officers. Officer Blasingame has been a dedicated team member, mentor and positive representation of the Fairfield Police Department.

Officer Golez will retire after nearly 30 years of law enforcement service to the City of Fairfield. He was hired as a Public Safety Officer with the Fairfield Police Department on January 7, 1983, and served the community in a number of police and fire functions until he attended the police academy in early 1985. After graduation, he was promoted to Police Officer on May 20, 1985, where he worked in various capacities within the Patrol and Traffic units.

Officer Golez has received numerous commendations from citizens and coworkers for his consistent and exemplary performance. Some of his most significant contributions to the Police Department have been the development of the Police Cadet Program and sharing his motorcycle expertise with fellow officers. Officer Golez has been a dedicated teacher, mentor and a positive representation of the Fairfield Police Department.

Sergeant Kauffman and Captain Mihelich will be presented with their retirement memorabilia at 3 p.m. on Thursday, December 13, 2012, during an Employee Recognition reception in Willow Hall at the Fairfield Community Center. Officers Blasingame and Golez will be recognized in early January. All are welcome to join the celebration of these distinguished careers.

Mr. Speaker, I come to the House floor to celebrate the life of one of California's greatest native sons, the Ambassador of Jazz, Dave Brubeck. The man behind the immortal classics like ``Take Five'' and ``Blue Rondo a la Turk'' was born in Concord, California, a city I'm proud to represent.

Drafted to serve in General Patton's Army during World War II, he formed the Army's first integrated band. He would later tour with black musicians in the Jim Crow South during the height of the civil rights movement, insisting on a mixed-race quartet and integrated crowds. Because of this courageous stand, 23 out of 25 of his shows were canceled one summer.

``Jazz is the voice of freedom,'' he said.

With suave sophistication, Brubeck would become a leader in the West Coast cool jazz scene, putting California jazz on the map. Dave Brubeck performed before Presidents, Prime Ministers, Premiers, and pontiffs. He was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts, and he was awarded the National Medal of the Arts.

On a personal note, during the 16 years I represented Stockton, Brubeck often came there to help the University of the Pacific and many charities.

Today, I hope everyone can Take Five to remember a remarkable American: Dave Brubeck.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for the opportunity. We're going to spend a good portion of this hour talking about something that is on everybody's mind, the fiscal cliff. Oh my goodness, the fiscal cliff is now just, well, 20 days away. So what are we going to do?

Some have suggested that we really have to deal with entitlements, and I'm here to agree that we can and we should deal with entitlements. Certainly, two of those issues, which I really don't think we ought to call entitlements, but they happen to be fundamental programs here in America for Americans, should be dealt with. One that some people want to put on the table really doesn't deal with the deficit at all, and that's Social Security.

So before we even get into this discussion tonight, let's just understand, for anybody that cares to take on this issue, that in dealing with the fiscal cliff, Social Security is not the problem. The deficit is not caused by Social Security. Social Security has never been and in its present form will not be part of the deficit issue. It's separate and apart. It is a special program, has its own source of revenue, has its own trust fund, and frankly, is not even running a deficit at all and has not run a deficit.

So let's put Social Security to the side and say, yes, in the years ahead, maybe even next year, but probably 3 to 4 years out, Social Security will be dealt with, as it must, because we will have to make adjustments. But that is really not the debate about the deficit, sequestration, or the fiscal cliff.

Coming back to the fiscal cliff, let's take up one of the very big programs, and I'm not talking here about the Department of Defense, which is one of the major expenditure items, but that's not the subject for tonight. Tonight the subject is Medicare and Medicaid.

The Medicare program is a big one, and it certainly is a program that is expensive. It's a program that, over the years, has grown on the average faster than inflation. But, in the last 2 years, that's not the case, and we'll discuss that in more detail later. In fact, Medicare has fallen below the general rate of health care inflation.

Let's talk about what we can do about Medicare. Instead of saying what we ought not do, we're going to start this discussion, at least my portion of it, talking about what we can do. And the President has put out several ideas that deserve the attention of the 435 Members of this House and the 100 Senators, because there are things that really can be done immediately to significantly reduce the cost of Medicare.

Just in listening to my colleagues here on the floor discuss the departure of some extraordinary Members from the Ohio delegation, I came across an article in one of the local Hill newspapers, and this article says, ``GAO hits Medicare and Medicaid wasteful spending.'' Turns out that the GAO just issued a report, came out just this week, that Medicare had, in their estimation, $28 billion in fraud and wasteful spending in the year 2011--$28 billion. And in Medicaid, some $21 billion.

Now, the President has suggested that one of the things we ought to do to reform the Medicare system and the Medicaid system is go after waste, fraud, and abuse. Well, there you have, what, 50-plus billion dollars of annual fraud, waste, and expenditure in the Medicare system. That goes a long way to solving the Medicare problem. And we ought to do that. And, in fact, a lot of that was done in the Affordable Health Care Act, and systems were put in place and they're working today.

But there's even more that can be done, according to the GAO. And if we're going to start dealing with Medicare, why don't we start right there with that issue and perhaps some $50 billion, or if you want to be a little conservative, let's just say 40 or $30 billion that we can reduce immediately.

By the way, this is going to take a few Federal employees to do that. Interestingly, in the Affordable Health Care Act there was a provision that added several thousand, a couple of thousand employees to the IRS for the specific purpose of going after Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Well, they were added, and then our Republican colleagues, in a fit of--well, just in a fit, decided that they would somehow save a lot of money by eliminating the men and women that were supposed to be hired to go after fraud.

They tried to do it. Fortunately, they were not successful.

I'm going to just name a couple of other ways in which we can reduce the cost of Medicare, and then I want to turn to my colleague from Illinois to expand on some of these issues.

Very quickly, how about drugs? Would you believe that the Federal Government has no power to negotiate the price of drugs for seniors in the Medicare program? It's true. Congress passed a law back in the 2003-2004 period that denied the Federal Government the ability to negotiate prices. We could save a pile of money right there.

There's some other things we can do--and some of this is already underway. We could penalize hospitals that have high infection rates; readmission to hospitals. Well, the Affordable Health Care Act is already doing that. And it's having an effect. We could also deal with the issues that occur with unnecessary payments. We can reform the system in the way in which payments are made so that they are more efficient and more effective. And those have been proposed by the President.

In fact, there are many, many things that can be done to significantly reduce the cost of Medicare without doing the onerous, damaging proposals that have been made by many of our colleagues on the Republican side, such as increasing the age to 67 when you could apply for Medicare--and we'll discuss that in much more detail in a few moments--and such as going after the privatization of Medicare.

Some really bad ideas are out there. And we don't need those bad ideas. What we need are some really good, solid ideas.

Let me turn to my colleague from Illinois, Jan Schakowsky. This is a woman who's been deeply involved in this issue. She was on the Simpson- Bowles Committee. That's not the formal name but that's how we know it--the Simpson-Bowles Committee. And she's focused specifically on Social Security and Medicare. She's joining us tonight with extraordinary background and information on this.

Jan, let's talk for a few minutes about your experiences and what you think we can do.

Let me just interrupt for a second. You started to discuss Social Security. I think what you meant was Medicare, which is where you have been taking the discussion. Medicare part B is means- tested--and has been since its inception.

Exactly. The amount that you pay into Medicare is higher as your income goes up.

So the argument that you've got to means-test this program is, Yes. And we do.

Your points are so very, very well taken. It seems as though--you call it a trophy. The argument made by some is that we ought not raise this top tax rate, but you ought to hit the Medicare program, the beneficiaries, and make them pay more. As you've said, they're mostly middle class and poor. So what's that all about? And raising the age to 67 is really stupid. There is no other way to describe that.

I was the insurance commissioner in California for 8 years, and let me tell you, you raise that age to 67, a lot of very, very bad things are going to happen. First of all, people between 65 and 67 are not likely to get insurance at all, let alone affordable, for the reason you said. That's the population that is almost uninsurable under the present system. Even with the Affordable Health Care Act, they're going to wind up paying a huge amount of money, and you're shifting the cost to them, to their employers, and to their State and local governments. You've saved no money. In fact, you've probably increased the cost because the benefits that go to seniors in the Affordable Care Act are not available to them, such benefits as annual checkups, medical services keeping people healthy.

I'd like to come back to that in a little while, but I noticed our colleague from the great State of Texas is with us. Thank you for joining us once again to talk about something that I know you've spent your career here in Congress working on: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

Let's describe the Senate bill.

I thank you for bringing this issue back. And I don't want to leave it right yet. Our colleague from Illinois started her discussion with the values, the values that we Americans possessed back in the 1960s when Medicare began. That was the value of caring for each other, particularly caring for those seniors who at that time had 50 percent in poverty, I think 70 percent without insurance, and a very bad situation.

I remember when I was a youngster, not even a teenager yet, my father took me to the county hospital. You mentioned the word poorhouse. That's what it was. And that is etched in my mind to this day, what was happening in that county hospital. It was just row after row of beds down a long ward. The cries, the sounds, and the odors were unbelievable. That was the only care available. And then Medicare came in. And we have moved to a different place, fortunately. Our values as Americans expressed in the most meaningful way, taking care of seniors, the issues of poverty, largely eliminated--no, that's not true. The issue of poverty among seniors substantially changed. We still have too much poverty. But medical services available, quality medical services that have extended the life of many.

The point you were making about not everybody is so very, very true. As you were talking, I was just thinking, I read something about this, though increasing overall life expectancy at 65 has not increased equally across the social economic status, from 1977 to 2007, life expectancy for the top half of earners increased by 5 years, but only 1 year for the bottom half of earners. So, once again, you have this disparity class, if you would. White men without a high school diploma have a life expectancy of 67.5 years as compared to 80.4 years for those with a college degree. Once again, two different societies in America.

Since 1990, life expectancy for the least educated whites has decreased--decreased--by 4 years. And now the argument is that we can increase the Medicare eligibility age to 67 because people are living longer. Hello? Who is living longer? Those who have higher incomes. Those who don't--and you said it so very well--those who work with their hands, whether they are a maid cleaning a hotel room or a farmer or a coal miner or any other task which is labor intensive, and that's physical labor intensive--by the time they get to 65, they're broken. Their body is broken. And to deny them the opportunity, I can tell you everybody I

meet who is not 65 wants to live long enough to get to 65 and Medicare.

So for our Republican friends, their principal negotiator has put on the table, the Speaker of the House has put on the table let's raise the eligibility age.

Jan, you were talking about this earlier--let's go back at this--this is a fundamental dichotomy in how we value our seniors, how we value each other and how we are compassionate.

Sure.

Sheila Jackson Lee, thank you very much. I hope you are able to stick around.

Jan.

Pain, serious pain.

Only in a free-market system would Congress pass a law to prohibit negotiating prices, which, I think, is kind of the essence of a market system.

You raised a couple of points, and I just want to use a chart to expand on those points. The Affordable Health Care Act--ObamaCare-- really significantly enhanced benefits to Medicare recipients 65 and older. They got some really important benefits. You mentioned the drug benefit, benefit part D, the doughnut hole that is being closed. That's worth, I think, some $55 billion a year to seniors. There's other things that are in the Affordable Health Care Act that have already saved vast amounts of money to the Medicare program. For example, annual wellness visits for seniors. Why is it important? Well, you find out certain things, like you've got high blood pressure. And you take a pill--we ought to be negotiating that price--but you take a pill, and suddenly you're able to reduce your blood pressure and avoid a stroke, avoid some other kind of medical incident. You may find that you're on the path towards diabetes or other kinds of long-term, very expensive illnesses. So that wellness visit becomes exceedingly important, and also some treatments are available.

Here's what's happened. Because of ObamaCare, the inflation rate in Medicare has been dramatically reduced. If you take a look at this particular chart, over the years it shows that beginning in 2005 and now in 2012, the annual increase in cost, the inflation rate in Medicare--it peaked in 2005, and then it began to come down. Here is the Affordable Health Care Act, or ObamaCare, and we have seen a decline to about 2\1/2\ percent inflation, which is actually less than the general health care inflation rate in the economy. This has occurred because of multiple factors, perhaps--and it's arguable, but we think one of the major factors is the advent of ObamaCare, or the Affordable Health Care Act, and the kinds of programs that are in the Affordable Health Care Act for Medicare recipients that reduce the cost of medical services.

Exactly.

As those other services roll out, they will affect not only the Medicare portion of the health care system, but they will also affect the general population and should, because of the availability of insurance and the availability of the ability therefore get to a doctor, to get the continuation of care, should bring down the overall inflation rate for health care, which will dramatically affect Medicare, as well.

What we are on is a track that is reducing what they call ``bending the inflation curve.'' It's happening. Here's the most dramatic chart that I've seen on this issue, that we are, in fact, bending the cost curve. And perhaps even

more important, senior citizens are healthier. They're healthier. They're getting better care. They're getting more care.

That's a very good point, but let me interrupt.

They were calculating an inflation rate that continued at this level. They did not calculate a reduction in the inflation rate. And in the more recent estimates of cost savings, they're now looking at this difference here. They're looking at a lower inflation rate. This saves billions upon billions of dollars in the Medicare system. So we are seeing that.

I don't want to let a point go by that you raised, and that is, yes, all of us Democrats were whacked over the head in the elections about the $720 billion. I was, you were, and I suspect the rest of us were also. The $720 billion of savings reductions in Medicare did not come from benefits. In fact, the benefits were increased just as you said. I don't know how many times I said that over the last several months, but I'm going to say it again: it didn't come from there. It came from three areas. You said this earlier, and it bears repetition.

First of all, it came out of the pockets of the insurance companies that were providing the additional Medicare insurance coverage; secondly, it came out of fraud and abuse; and, thirdly, it came out of payments to medical providers that were not performing good services. Specifically, one of the biggest were hospitals that had high infection rates. The Affordable Health Care Act said, we are not paying for the second admission when there is an infection acquired in the hospital. This is really good news to every Medicare beneficiary because suddenly the hospital goes, Oh, you mean we are going to have to pay for the cost of a readmission because of an infection? The government's not going to pay for it any more? Maybe we ought to clean up our act. Maybe we ought to have a little bit of hygiene in this hospital.

We are now seeing a significant decline in the hospital infection rates. It's not expensive for hospitals to do, but extremely important for every individual that goes into a hospital, whether you're on Medicare or otherwise. Hospitals are now paying attention to hygiene, cleaning up, washing hands, other kinds of very simple, inexpensive things that keep people healthy and reduce the cost of Medicare and general health care.

There are some very simple things in the Affordable Health Care Act that do reduce the cost, and this is the continuity of care. This is the kind of thing you're talking about. It is the management of a debilitating illness, for example, diabetes. If diabetes is properly managed, the kinds of extraordinarily damaging and expensive things that occur to individuals are either delayed or not happening at all. So management systems are put in place that dramatically reduce the overall costs. They cost a little bit up front because people are keeping in touch with the patient. It's not necessarily a doctor. It may be a case worker keeping in touch with the patient and making sure they're taking their medications, making sure they're doing the checkups that they need on a regular basis, getting that kind of thing. How about right now?

I don't know. There are a whole bunch of people in this room--435. They're not here today, but how many have gotten their flu shots? If you want to reduce the costs of health care, get your flu shot. I think I'll go do that tomorrow.

I know. I've got to do it tomorrow. I'll get my flu shot.

So these are the kinds of things that reduce costs, and the Affordable Care Act does that, not just for seniors but all the way down the board.

Go ahead. You were about to make a comment. Then I want to turn to some of the pernicious things that are being proposed to Medicare and to seniors.

I guess, as politicians--all 435 of us--what happens when we get elected is we often read the polls. Hmm, let's see here: 67 percent of Americans are opposed to increasing the age from 65 to 67-- 71 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of Republicans, and 62 percent of Independents. That's pretty overwhelming.

So, just to back up to what you were saying a few moments ago about the American public, they viscerally, internally, understand how important Medicare is. It's not just for themselves. They have parents, many of whom are now 65. My mother is 92. She's a Medicare recipient, and she depends upon Medicare for her hospitalization. Fortunately, she hasn't had an incident for more than 2 years now, but when she did, Medicare was there to provide the necessary services for her, and so it is for all of us who have parents who are in the Medicare system.

We understand this, and we really want to make it quite clear that, as Democrats, we are in synchronization with the President on this issue. He has put forward specific proposals that over time will reduce the cost of Medicare without taking away the benefits, without changing the eligibility age.

However, there are proposals--and I spoke earlier about one that has been put forth by the Speaker of the House--to increase the age to 67. No, that's a nonstarter. I'm not going to go into all the actuarial issues--which I could easily do--about why that makes no sense at all for employers, who would wind up paying more. It makes no sense at all for an individual, who is going to wind up paying more. It makes no sense to the Medicaid program, which you've already talked about, and it makes no sense in saving money. The total cost to the system would actually increase. The costs would be shifted, to be sure. No, not so. I guess I will do a little actuarial work here.

Those people who are 65 to 67 years of age are more healthy than people who are 67 and above. You eliminate the healthy people from the risk pool, and guess what happens to those who are left--it's more expensive per person in that smaller risk pool. So what you want to do in all insurance programs is to increase the size of the risk pool so that the cost is shared among a larger population of people. What this proposal does is exactly the opposite. It shrinks the risk pool. It keeps in that risk pool less healthy people; it's more expensive; and those who are more healthy are outside. Yet they are now shifted on to the new exchanges that are going to be created, so the cost in the exchange is increased, and the cost

for the per-person in Medicare is increased. So what's going on here? You've got to think this through. Bad idea. Bad concept.

The word ``entitlement'' is really misused for both Social Security and Medicare. Basically, the word means that, when you reach a certain age, the program is available to you. It's not a freebie. Men and women in America who work, even those who are 65 and over, continue to pay what amounts to a health care premium. It's the payroll tax. They're paying that from the first paycheck they get until the last one that they receive. Then when they're no longer working, as you so correctly stated, Medicare does not cover the total cost, so they're going to continue to pay. They're probably going to be paying for a supplemental insurance program, and they're certainly going to be paying out-of-pocket and the like.

There are a couple of other things that have been proposed, and I want to just cover those because they're very important. It has been proposed that the cost of the Medicare system can be reduced by giving every senior a voucher or--a different word but exactly the same thing--premium support, which basically says that the Medicare system, as we have known it for nearly 50 years, is terminated--gone--and that seniors who are 65--or 67 if they get their way--would be thrown into the private health insurance market. I cannot imagine a worse situation for a senior. The private health insurance market is not interested in caring for seniors.

They don't want those people because they get sick and they're expensive. They want Medicare, but the voucher program is the privatization of Medicare. It is nothing other than that. It's the termination of this guarantee, and seniors have to go out and negotiate on their own for a health insurance policy.

Good luck, Mom. You're 92 years old. Good luck in getting a health insurance policy from any private health insurance company. It won't happen. It won't happen.

So, with those proposals, they are wrongheaded; they are cruel; they are expensive to the individual; and they ultimately will lead to a system in which health insurance will not be available to seniors. That's a proposal that has been given life and that has actually passed the House of Representatives.

Indeed, it is. It has passed the House of Representatives twice--not once but twice.

So this is not just some idea floating in the ethereal. This is a real proposal that is sitting in the Senate. Fortunately, it's going nowhere there, but these kinds of programs are there.

The other program--and we've talked around this issue--is just a flat-out assault on the benefits. We're going to cut out drugs. We're going to cut out one or another of the benefits that are in Medicare. The package of benefits in Medicare is designed to provide a continuity of care so that something that is common is going to get covered-- hospitalization, a doctor's care, and now, with the Affordable Care Act, annual visits to the doctor. It's very, very important.

Let me be clear that, as Democrats, we understand the necessity of reducing the cost of Medicare. We understand that. In fact, we have done it. The Democrats have done it. We have taken action to reduce the cost of Medicare and to simultaneously maintain the benefits and improve the benefits to seniors.

That is what we have done, and we'll continue to do it. Things I talked about at the very outset are very real. We can take additional steps. We can do more. The President has proposed it, and the Democrats stand ready today to take up those issues and pass them out of the House, give them to the Senate and say we can do more to reduce the cost of Medicare and simultaneously maintain quality care for seniors and the benefits that they have spent their lifetime paying for, paying for those benefits. We can do it. We've done it.

Our colleague, Sheila Jackson Lee, before she left, she brought this issue up. In the House today is the tax program that would continue the tax reductions for the middle class.

Exactly so. All we need to do is pass that.

The other alternative, which has been proposed, is to keep the taxes low for the superwealthy and to pay for that out of the pockets of seniors. We're not going there, and we shouldn't.

Jan, thank you for sharing this evening with us. This is an important issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker and colleagues and the general public, there has been a lot of discussion in the last several days about what to do with the fiscal cliff. Is it a cliff? Is it not a cliff? Is it a slope? Is it the end of America as we know it, or whatever. But in this debate, there are a few things that are absolutely critical--tax policy, the President has laid it out very, very clearly, as did the election. We're going to do tax reform, yes. And it's time for those at the upper end of this wealthy country to pay their fair share. So the President has made it very clear: we're going to raise the rates on those making over $250,000 a year. And by the way, we ought to be very clear understanding what that means. That means 100 percent of Americans get a tax break on the first $250,000 of income. Over that, yes, they'll pay a higher rate, marginal rate, for that over the top.

Hey, but what I really want to talk about today with my colleagues who will be joining me in the next few minutes is another part of this debate, and that is on the reductions in Federal expenditures. What's the best way to do it? How are we going to reduce Federal expenditures? There are those that say take on the entitlements. Make the seniors pay more. End Medicare as we know it. Turn it into a voucher program. Or maybe turn it into a premium support program which, as a former insurance commissioner, I know exactly what that means. That means if you're over 65, hey, you're going to get to go buy insurance from the rapacious health insurance companies. Good luck. Premium support, just another way to end Medicare as we know it. Voucher programs, another way to end Medicare as we know it.

In the last election, this was a central part of the debate here in America. And it was clear: no way, no how are we going that way. There are others who proposed, well, why don't we just raise the age to 67? Interesting, very interesting proposal. Well, it will save Medicare a little bit of money, but what does it do to those people who are 65 to 67 years of age? It denies them the opportunity to get affordable health insurance in the Medicare program and simply throws those people off to the wolves, again, to the rapacious health insurance companies. And by the way, those are exactly the people that the health insurance companies don't want. They're the people who have higher expenditures. They're the ones who are beginning to get health issues, so the health insurance companies don't want them. How are they going to get insurance? They're going to get insurance at a very high cost, if at all.

And, oh, by the way, there are those that want to do away with the Affordable Health Care Act. In the Affordable Health Care Act, there's this thing

called the Patients' Bill of Rights. The Patients' Bill of Rights guarantees that insurance companies cannot deny you based upon a preexisting condition. However, they can charge differential rates based upon age. So that notion of somehow saving Medicare by keeping people from getting Medicare is the back way to go, and it is a nonstarter, at least with me and I think many of my colleagues.

There are things that can be done in Medicare, and we're going to talk about those things that we can do here with our colleagues today. We also want to pick up the issue of Social Security. Let's be very clear: the deficit situation faced by the United States is not a Social Security problem. It is not a Social Security problem. Social Security is stand-alone. It is not part of the American deficit. It's an issue that over the years has come back before the American public. The Congresses in the past have dealt with it, extended the viability of Social Security for years and years, and this Congress does not need to deal with this problem this year or even next year in the 113th Congress. Down the road it must be dealt with--and there are numerous ways it can be--but to bring Social Security into the deficit debate is only to cloud this debate and to make it far more difficult for us to find a solution.

Now, my Democratic colleagues and I and the President have made it very clear we understand the necessity of solving this problem and we're willing to compromise. The President has put on the table a very complete, detailed program about how we can deal with the deficit both in the short term and in the years ahead. And we need to proceed with that. Unfortunately, it was just simply dismissed and a new--well, not a new--actually a rebaked, redone, rehashed proposal was put on the table by our Republican colleagues yesterday, one that really doesn't move us toward a compromise. We need to get there. We need to get a compromise under way. So let's see if we can figure out how to do it.

I see several of my colleagues here. I'm not sure which one was first up, but it looks like it might be Florida.

Well, you're absolutely correct about that. The proposal to cut Medicare benefits is a nonstarter. There are things that can be done in Medicare to reduce the cost, and much has already been done.

I would like to ask my colleague from the great State of Michigan to join us. Mr. Curson is a new Member of Congress, came in a special election about a month ago. Welcome. We are delighted to have you join us.

Mr. Curson, thank you so very much for your thoughtful discussion of the age issue--it's a profoundly important one--and also bringing up the issue of what is the cost of Medicare administration compared to the private health insurance companies. You're quite correct. Medicare is a very efficiently run program, very efficient in collecting the money and paying the bills, far more than you would ever find in the private health insurance sector, perhaps by a factor of 4-- 3, 4, maybe even 5 in some cases. Also, Medicare has had an extraordinary run of keeping the costs down.

I'd like now to call upon Mr. Joe Courtney of Rhode Island-- Connecticut. I've made two mistakes today about my colleagues' locale.

Joe, it's yours.

Mr. Courtney of the great State of Connecticut, thank you very much for bringing this information to us.

Your chart is a dramatic one, when you consider the period of time and the extraordinary reduction in the inflation rate in Medicare. If you had another line on that showing the general inflation in health care for the general population, it would actually be above Medicare, that entire slope all the way down.

And it's significantly above it. So what's happened--in part, I think, you're correct; there may be other forces involved here, but certainly you can see the effect of the Affordable Health Care Act. And you identified very well some of the critical cost savings that are in that. And it's well worth repeating it, which I will do with you. And we ought to go back so the public comes to understand what was in the Affordable Health Care Act.

For those over 65 that are in Medicare, those changes are critically important. First of all, stay healthy. If you want to save money on hospitals and doctors, stay healthy. And so you have an annual wellness visit. I think something like 50, 60 million Americans have been able to take advantage of that free annual visit. You've got high blood pressure? Well, let's take some blood pressure medicine. You're headed for diabetes? Here's a dietary program or exercise program. We can deal with those. You keep people out of the hospitals. The hospital infection rate, the other one you talked about, very powerful. I hear from hospitals in my district, and I'm sure my colleagues do also. They don't want that readmission because that comes right out of the hospital's pocket. And also there's a penalty.

So there are many, many issues here that are involved in the Affordable Health Care Act that have caused that slope downward to continue. Enormous savings to Medicare. Because when you look at the Medicare issue, it's a projection for 10 years. And the projected rate 2 years ago was 5, 6 percent. And where are you, down in the 2 percent range now? Those are multibillion dollars a year the American public will not have to pay in taxes and increases in expenditures. So these things begin to add up. But there are many, many more savings.

I don't want to dominate all this time. I see that other of our colleagues have come and joined us.

Peter Welch from Vermont.

If I might interrupt you for a moment. Under the current law, the U.S. Government Medicare program, it is prevented by law.

Mr. Welch, we will do it.

Mr. Courtney from Connecticut has some ideas about other things that we can do.

I think it really would add cost. We discussed earlier that the Affordable Health Care Act has a very powerful cost-saving mechanism called Staying Healthy. And that is the prevention programs. If you move that age from 65 to 67, you're going to have a significant population of seniors who will not have access to that preventative medicine program. It's not going to be there for them. So the potential for them to develop long-term, debilitating diseases increases. And when they get to Medicare, they will be much more expensive, to say nothing of what happens to them during that 2-year period when they can't get to Medicare.

You said something earlier on and I'm going to go back to this. You talked about what happened before Medicare--the 50 percent of the population of seniors without medical insurance, the poverty rate. When you said that, my mind flashed back to when I was a young man in the 1950s--actually, not even a teenager--my dad took me to the county hospital. We were ranchers out in the boondocks of California, and nobody had insurance who was in their senior years. The county hospital sticks in my mind as the reason for Medicare. It was beyond horrible. There was just a row of beds, the most horrible odor in that ward-- people dying. It was so compelling.

And today, there are issues out there. But we have seen the population of seniors healthy, living longer--20 years longer than they were just 45 years ago--50 years ago now. This is so important to seniors. And it is the Democratic Party that has stood for Medicare all of these decades. And we're not going to let it go. We're not going to let Medicare go. It is a foundation of our humanity and our compassion as Americans for all because all of us want to live long enough to get into Medicare.

Reforms are possible. We've talked about several of them here today. I know that our colleague from Michigan spoke earlier. If you'd like to come back in and talk about this, we'd welcome you. We'll go back here for a little longer.

Mr. Curson.

Well, there are certainly a series of things that we know we can do to reduce the cost of Medicare. Some of those are already in place. They've been brought forward by the Affordable Care Act. Others are yet to be done. The prescription drug issue is out there, enormous savings, $160 billion or $150 billion right there over a 10-year period.

The fraud in the system, some of that was dealt with with the Affordable Care Act, but there's much more that can be done. There are fraudulent billings for durable medical equipment as well as other kinds of services that are provided. Those need to be addressed. The systems that are being put in place, that is, moving away from fee-for- service, will significantly address that.

In the area of hospitalization, again, there are programs that are viable, that are not yet implemented, that are not part of the savings that have already been calculated, for example, programs on the dual eligibles. The dual eligibles are those people that do not have sufficient income, but are already quite ill that may be 20 years of age, and they're getting Medicaid as well as Medicare. There are savings that can be found in the way in which we organize that.

For those seniors that are on Medicare, an organized health care system that keeps them healthy, that is, taking the prevention program a step further, or two or three steps further, so that there is a continuity of care and there is a follow-up, maybe a social worker or simply somebody on the phone saying how are you doing; are you taking your medicine; are you able to get the food that you need so that people can stay healthy. A healthy population significantly reduces cost.

The use of the Affordable Care Act--not just for Medicare, but for the total cost of the system--has a very, very powerful cost reduction in it; and it's called ``insurance.'' Forty million Americans are going to be insured. That means that those people are less likely, far less likely to go to the emergency room to get their care.

The Affordable Care Act also provides for clinics. Where a private doctor may not be available, a clinic would be available. So all of these things provide more care to people and, in doing so, reduce the cost of the extraordinarily expensive care that comes from when people don't get continuing services of health care.

So Medicare is a huge issue before all of us. On the Democratic side, we're saying, yes, there are savings available in Medicare, we should take advantage of those, but we're not going to cut benefits. And we're not going to privatize Medicare or end Medicare as we know it. There are other things that we can do, we're willing to do it; let's compromise on those things that make sense without destroying the Medicare program.

Not on our watch are we going to see the benefit package reduced in such a way as to harm seniors--no way. And no way are we going to end Medicare as we know it. We'll draw a line in the sand; we'll save the money; we'll put that cost curve even on a better trajectory, and that is a very, very formidable and positive trajectory there.

Let's spend just a moment of time, as we come towards the end of our time, on Social Security, which many people--well, not on the Democratic side, but let's talk about Social Security and should it be on the cutting table here, should it be part of the deficit reduction.

Mr. Courtney.

Well, you are certainly well stating my position and I believe the position of our colleagues and I believe of the President. Social Security is not part of the current deficit problem. It is an issue. We'll have to deal with it at any time between now and the next 7, 8 years. And we can. It's been done before.

At least three times in my memory, Social Security has been adjusted. One was discussed earlier with the issue of

the COLA. That's been adjusted. There are things that can be done to deal with Social Security, but that is a debate separate and apart from the deficit and the fiscal cliff debate.

The fiscal cliff debate is a tax issue, and it's also a spending issue. Today we focus largely on the issue of what are we going to do about Medicare, a big part of the Federal expenditures. And our argument is this: we're here to protect Medicare for seniors, period. We're not here to cut the benefits for seniors. We're here to see to it that Medicare, which has been a program for seniors since 1964-65, is going to continue to be there for seniors as well as the benefits package that's there. There are reforms and changes that can be made to reduce the cost of Medicare but not to reduce the benefits. We've talked about many of those.

So here's where we're coming. Within that area, there are very, very significant savings that can be made. The prescription drug benefit, $150 billion over 10 years. Other issues having to do with keeping people healthy, to extend their health care, issues having to do with how much we pay for certain services, fraud and abuse. All of those things could add up to the potential savings--not the potential savings--to the savings that the President has called for, which is somewhere in the range of $300 billion over 10 years--additional savings over and above what has already taken place in the Affordable Care Act. And we've seen in this decline in the inflation rate in health care some of the effects of the Affordable Care Act. So there are things that can be done and will be done.

Social Security is not a part of this debate.

But I also want to point out here in the last closing minutes of this a couple of things that I think are very, very important. The President has put forth a very detailed program calling for $1.6 trillion in additional revenue over 10 years; and that is money that is to come from the expiration of the George W. Bush tax cuts for the top 2 percent.

Now I want to make this clear. I said this earlier--yes, it's worth repeating because it's not said very often--every American taxpayer gets a tax reduction. The superwealthy to the very minimum taxpayer in this Nation gets a reduction in what the President is proposing. And that is to continue at the current tax rate for those with under $250,000 adjusted gross income. For those who have income over and above that, they get that tax reduction. And above that, they're going to pay an additional amount up to 3.9 percent in two different tranches. So everyone gets a tax break.

But those superwealthy, the 2 percent, they're going to pay more, and that will amount to a substantial amount of money over 10 years. And, frankly, they've had 12 years of really low, low taxes--the lowest taxes, really, ever since the 1930s.

The President has also proposed something that's very important. We talked about this last week. I want to talk about this again the next time we come here. And that is, how do we grow jobs? How do we put people back to work?

The President has proposed an additional $50 billion. He did this more than a year ago in the American Jobs Act, and he's put it back on the table: $50 billion in infrastructure. Let's build the foundation. That deserves a lot of discussion; and, frankly, it's something we ought to enact here right away and put people back to work.

There are other savings that he's proposed over the course of the next 2 years. We don't have time now. I notice my time has just about expired, if you would like to take a final shot at this, Mr. Curson.

And by the way, this is the first opportunity I have had to spend part of my hour with you. You are a very articulate spokesperson for the working men and women in this Nation. You know the issues of Medicare and Social Security so very, very well. And I know, coming from Michigan and Detroit, you know the need to build the jobs portion of our economy. So why don't you close, and then I will wrap this up.

How about next week? We'll come back to the floor next week, and we'll pick up the issues of infrastructure, of jobs and the like.

This week we need to focus on what has been put on the table by the Republicans and the Democrats on how to deal with the fiscal cliff, dealing with the issue of Social Security and Medicare. Social Security--no, not part of this problem. It is something we'll deal with perhaps in the next Congress or even in the one beyond that because we do have time to deal with Social Security.

Medicare--for those who want to privatize Medicare, end it as we know it with a voucher or a premium support program--no. No way, no how are we going to go there.

For those that want to work on changing the way in which Medicare operates to get savings, such as negotiating drug prices, dealing with fraud and abuse, the various payment systems that are in Medicare, all of which can save money and to continue the work of the Affordable Care Act, and the way it has already brought the inflation rate down from the 4 percent, 5 percent range down into 2, 2.5 percent range, this is an extraordinary savings right here. And that will be calculated in the years ahead. And, frankly, this will add up to hundreds of billions of dollars in the reduction and the projected cost of Medicare in the years ahead.

So we're making progress. We've got work to do, and we're prepared to do it. The Democrats are prepared to put together a compromise. Let's get to work on it. The American public expects us to do that. And we can, and we will.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.