Floor Statements

I thank the gentleman.

This proposal certainly does represent a visit from the ghost of Christmas past--last Christmas to be specific--when Republicans stood here and said only a lump of coal for the unemployed until you stuff every stocking to overflowing.

Well, today's Republican bill would eliminate up to 40 weeks of unemployment coverage with the biggest cuts coming in States like mine, Texas, with high unemployment rates. That means that next year over 3 million unemployed Americans and their families will be shortchanged if this bill is enacted. Long-term unemployment in America today has not been this high, for this long, in 60 years. We have over 6 million fewer jobs now than when the recession began and more than four workers for every job opening. And in 10 States, this bill responds by making it possible to no longer require that unemployment insurance funds are used for unemployment insurance benefits.

Under the Democratic alternative that I have introduced, unemployment would be available only to those who are actively searching for a job, getting job training, or who are out there in a temporary layoff situation. Nor is an unemployment check any substitute for a paycheck. As The New York Times editorialized this morning: ``When was the last time any Republican lawmaker tried to live on $289 a week, the amount of the average unemployment benefit?''

And this same measure also offers a lump of coal for Medicare. I believe in seeking efficiencies in Medicare. That's one reason why we voted for the Affordable Care Act, to ensure that billions of dollars were saved. But the billions that are cut from other health care providers in today's bill come on top of across-the-board cuts that are already enacted and will be effective within about the next year.

At some point, cuts to hospitals and nursing homes mean that seniors and the disabled will be unable to access the quality care that they need. And this bill's $8 billion cut to preventable chronic disease programs like heart disease and diabetes is shortsighted and will cost us more in the long run than it saves.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I still call you ``Mr. Chairman,'' though the formal leadership of the committee has changed with the change in the majority here in the House. And I guess if you were in fact still the chairman with full authority we would not be here, nor would there be any unemployed individual in the United States among the millions whose benefits would expire next year who would be wondering the night before Christmas what would happen the day after their unemployment coverage expired next year.

We face a great challenge, and as you have been pointing out in describing individuals like Jessie, a retired--not

voluntarily retired, but retired, removed from the workforce by unemployment in San Antonio, these are very real human beings, not just unemployment statistics.

With over 6 million fewer jobs than when the recession began and more than four workers competing for every job opening, too many Americans have nowhere to go. They are like the lyrics from that working man song of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band:

Had me a job until the market fell out;

Tried hard to borrow, but there was no help.

Now I've got nowhere to go.

I need a job for these two hands;

I'm a working man with nowhere to go.

And if our Republican colleagues continue to insist that unemployment is caused by the unemployed instead of by the troubling economy we have, there will be about another 5 million Americans with nowhere to go, looking as to where they will find the resources to put food on the table, make the car or pick-up truck payment, take care of the kids and meet the other necessities of life if their unemployment insurance expires.

While the Republicans continue to have a really factless finger- pointing at the unemployed, I think it is past time for us to lay the facts straight out on the table and respond to some of these myths that they've been promoting.

Fact: An unemployment check is not a substitute for a paycheck. People like Jessie know that. An unemployment benefit usually amounts to a fraction of what a worker was making before someone lost his or her job.

Fact: Unless you are actively searching for a job, getting job training for a new job, or are on temporary layoff, you're not likely to be entitled to an unemployment check.

I'm not for just paying people to be idle; but these are individuals who are either getting training, who are actively involved in a job search, or the few that are in the temporary layoff category. There is little evidence to support the Republican claim, repeated again and again, that unemployment insurance benefits are a significant factor in discouraging folks from going out and looking for work.

Fact: to receive extended benefits, an unemployed person is required to accept reasonable offers of employment. Two out of three of the unemployed respondents in the Heldrich Center survey, and 80 percent of those who were receiving unemployment benefits, said they were willing to take a pay cut in order to get a new job, as so many Americans have had to do with the challenges in our economy.

Fact: one economist estimates that for every $1 dollar we spend on these unemployment insurance benefits, about a $1.61 in economic activity comes back. In fact, some of the estimates from one group that began its survey back during the Bush administration for the Department of Labor say it's even higher than that in terms of the economic rewards.

So I believe that we must create jobs. Certainly, we must do the kinds of things that this Congress has failed totally to do in terms of job creation and promoting economic recovery. But we also must provide a vital lifeline for those folks who are out there actively searching for work and the jobs are just not there for them.

The facts are clear. The time for us to extend unemployment coverage is now, not to wait until next year, not to wait until Christmas, and not to wait until these families are faced with the critical situation of not having the unemployment insurance coverage that they should have to meet these basic necessities, but to act right now in the next few days.

It's for that reason, as you well know, that we're working together to try to get this unemployment insurance coverage extended, as it has been done often on a bipartisan basis in the past whenever the unemployment rate was at a level near what it is today.

So, hopefully, in our sounding the alarm here again tonight, in your telling these stories about individual Americans and what a loss of this coverage means, we can begin to involve and get the support of more of our colleagues to do what we really need to have accomplished just as soon as possible.

It is our pledge, because there's just too much at stake here. This Congress has been incredibly unproductive. You might think it had been unemployed for much of the past year. And we need to stay and complete the work.

This is work that was done practically on Christmas Eve last year, when this extension was in jeopardy again. And we ought not to go right down to the wire like that again. There's no reason that this could not be done in the coming week, but for this ideological commitment saying that unemployment insurance coverage is not good for the economy. The facts don't bear that out.

The individual stories that you're telling us about tonight, those are the individuals, those are the families that have so much at stake. And of course, because of this economic effect, those unemployed families, when they get a dollar of unemployment insurance, they have to spend that dollar. They may be spending it at the grocery store. They may be paying a landlord or a mortgage company. They may be paying on their credit card or their car, just to have the basic necessities of life; and that's why the economic impact on small businesses is so significant from doing what we would need to do in order to support these families engaged in an active job search or getting the retraining and the retooling they need to have an opportunity for a job in the future.

Mr. Speaker, while this House does sometimes act in ways that border on the insane, applying this constitutional straitjacket is hardly the appropriate treatment. It basically imposes the tyranny of the minority. Two-fifths of the Members of this House can block action. And America has seen how well that works across the Capitol in the United States Senate, where a three-fifths rule already applies, and too often has rendered the Senate largely impotent, unresponsive to public demand for action on key national issues, unable to overcome the threat of a Republican filibuster.

Today's proposal would broaden that impotence to both sides of the Capitol. On a critical budget question, if we take a vote in this House and 260 people vote in the majority, and 175 vote in the minority, the minority rules. Democracy loses.

Of course, there is a major exception to this proposed new rule, and it is an exception that may well eat the entire rule. So long as a majority of the House determines, probably through the fine print of some huge, voluminous piece of legislation, that the country faces an imminent and serious threat to its national security, well, in that case this purported constitutional amendment is totally nullified. What year, since 9/11, would a majority of this Congress have been unwilling to make such a finding and render the proposal meaningless?

A constitutional amendment is not a path to a balanced budget. It is only an excuse for Members of this body failing to cast votes to achieve one.

I voted for a balanced budget. I voted for a balanced budget when I voted against launching an unnecessary war on borrowed money. I voted for a balanced budget when I voted to reject the distorted Republican theology that when the question is taxes, less always means more. It's political alchemy. It's like turning hay into gold. The more the tax cut theology is proven wrong over and over and over again, the more the Republican faithful demand another tax cut to drive us deeper into debt.

This is the kind of extremism that causes a stage full of Republican Presidential hopefuls to declare that they would reject any budget agreement that cut spending by $10 if it raised taxes by even $1. A few months ago, such irresponsibility took us to the brink of default and jeopardized our economic recovery. They just could not overcome their ideological restraints.

Don't jeopardize our economic future. Don't play games with veterans and retirement security and law enforcement just because Republicans cannot accept the economic reality, as they often cannot except basic science.

Reject this misbegotten amendment.

As families gather this next week for Thanksgiving, some 6 million Americans will be left wondering whether they will be able to secure a job before their Federal unemployment coverage expires. They are

people like Jesse, a retired Navy veteran in San Antonio who has applied for over 300 jobs unsuccessfully.

Sadly, some Republicans continue to blame the unemployment problem on the unemployed, even though there are about four people for every job opening in America today. Too many remain jobless, not for lack of wanting to work, but for a lack of work.

Let's continue to encourage more job creation. But for those who lack a job, we also must preserve the lifeline of extended unemployment benefits. It's only the turkey that ought to be carved at Thanksgiving, not the unemployed's ability to share in the bounty of America.

Mr. Speaker, during rollcall vote number 822 on H.R. 2112, I mistakenly recorded my vote as ``no'' when I should have voted ``yes.''

I thank the gentleman.

We need a new, 21st-century trade policy that encourages more trade without encouraging a race to the bottom in conditions for our workers and in the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink.

Trade agreements should not be measured solely with regard to how many tons of goods move across a border, but they must consider the impact on how our workers are treated, how our environment is treated. And that's the very kind of trade policy that President Obama has said repeatedly he is committed to. Trade Adjustment Assistance is just not a substitute for a new trade policy that recognizes that too often American jobs have been a leading American export.

All three of these Bush-Cheney trade agreements are deficient. But this one in particular shows just how far those who think that the only thing that matters in trade policy is the volume of goods from one country to another, to the exclusion of everything else, how that narrow view insists today that we must have totally free trade with the trade union murder capital of the world. Yes, supporters of this free trade agreement have forgotten it's not free, it's not free to those who attempt to represent workers in Colombia.

Last year, 49 trade union members were murdered in Colombia. And this year, it's already up to 20. Human Rights Watch has just reported that there is virtually no progress in securing murder convictions. They got six

out of 195 union member murders that were actually convicted. In nine of 10 cases, the Colombians haven't even identified a suspect in these murders. You can talk of an action plan, and that's fine; but it's just like talk of a new trade policy. It's just talk and nothing else.

This amendment denies any enforcement provision on the Action Plan that would make it actionable. LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens, opposes this agreement, quite rightly calling for a new American trade policy that promotes living wages and sustainable jobs, encourages human rights, labor standards, and a healthy environment--not only here, but among each of our trading partners.

Instead, today's agreement emplaces the principle that violence against the very people who make the goods being traded will be disregarded, will be overlooked if only we can increase the trade volume of what they make.

Reject this misguided agreement.

While this agreement, based upon the flawed framework of the Bush-Cheney administration, offers no model for the future with regard to workers or environmental protection, I am supporting today's measure because of a successful response to a longstanding concern that I have had, that is, Panama's status as a notorious tax haven, a place where taxpayers who refuse to pay their fair share of the cost of our national security and vital public services could go to hide their assets and dodge taxes.

About 2 years ago, Senator Carl Levin and I urged the administration to postpone the approval of this trade agreement until Panama first signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement, where we could get information about assets hidden there and for Panama to change its laws regarding bank secrecy and other matters to assure that this agreement was meaningful. Panama has now met these conditions.

For the first time ever, we can obtain information from the Panamanian Government on U.S. taxpayers who have Panamanian assets or income. Though the Treasury Department should have secured a stronger automatic information exchange similar to the one we have with Canada and 24 other countries--and I would much prefer also to see an actual record of Panamanian compliance--we need to accept this as a victory in the fight against offshore tax cheats. This would not have been possible had it not been for the strong Panamanian desire to get the trade agreement approved.

By also agreeing to 12 other exchange agreements on tax information, Panama was recently removed from the OECD gray list of tax havens. Now we must ensure that Panama's newfound openness and transparency does not end with approval of today's agreements.

I support this trade agreement, knowing that while it could have been much better, the dangers have been mitigated with an agreement that has a very modest scope.

I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, this is a bipartisan bill, which I fully support, but it is important to understand what this bill does and what it does not do. It is important to understand which provisions we agree upon and which ones we accept as only being better than the alternative of allowing this important law and all those who count on it to expire next week.

Last week, the Census Bureau reported that more Americans were poor in 2010 than at any time on record. Regrettably, my home State of Texas was leading the way with one of the highest poverty rates anywhere in America.

The Texas Center for Public Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan group, recently reported that ``The heart of the American Dream is at risk in Texas.'' For the first time in generations, there are more people falling out of the middle class than joining its ranks. And what a struggle it is for those families trying to hold on.

In a neighborhood near downtown San Antonio, Andrew Ramos and his wife, Nina, are struggling just to keep food on the table for themselves and their 2-year-old daughter. Andrew lost his job, and Nina works at a local pizza parlor where she makes about $200 a week. There are so many families just like the Ramos family--almost one in five in poverty in Bexar County.

As John Turner at the Capital Area Food Bank concludes: Hunger is a result of lack of income and of a livable wage. It affects too many of our neighbors, he says, under the current Texas economic model.

The demands on our food banks, which serve as effective public- private partnerships, are immense. The Capital Area Food Bank, this year, is delivering 50 percent more food to poor people than it did 3 years ago.

But I don't really hear anyone facing up to this harsh reality--not our Governor in Texas, not the President of the United States, and certainly not the leadership here in the House. In fact, the Administration has shown little interest and almost no guidance in reforming this legislation.

Rather than respond to rising deprivation and declining opportunity, this legislation continues for another 3 months, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Act. This is a program that today provides direct assistance to only one in every five children living in Poverty in America. That's the lowest level of poor children receiving direct assistance since 1965. And of course in Texas it's much worse, where only one in every 20 poor children receive direct assistance from

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 additional minute.

I think also of the words of Claudia Herrington, who works at El Buen Samaritano, dealing largely with Latino families. She writes: ``This is not the American Dream I believe in. This is not the American Dream my father believed in when he emigrated from Cuba here in the 1960s. I know our country is better than that, regardless of political affiliation. And I know that investment in our people and their ability to earn a decent living is a worthwhile policy.''

We need a policy that is more safety net than hole, and I hope eventually we can work together to achieve that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would yield myself 15 seconds to say that under Democratic leadership we extended the supplemental TANF program that Governor Rick Perry was so proud about in 2001. We extended it four times. The only reason that it existed in the spring of this year was because of our extensions. It should be extended once again, and I hope in the process we can do that.

I would now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Rangel).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington State, the former chair of this subcommittee, Mr. McDermott.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, the House should approve this important bipartisan legislation today. To fail to approve this modest extension would cause even more people to suffer with the expiration of these programs next week.

Mr. Speaker, it may not be in vogue to discuss the problems of poor people in America today, but we need to hear more about it in this House. We need to hear more about it in Washington, DC.

Certainly we want to support and encourage the middle class in America--very, very important--but we need to create more opportunity to broaden that middle class. For the many people who struggle and hope that lives will be better for their children and that they will face less obstacles than their parents have faced, we need to provide that temporary assistance to needy families. The current program leaves out too many and forgets too many of those families in their struggle.

The omission of TANF supplemental grants, which we renewed four times in the last two Congresses, is not being renewed here, which means that in Texas and in so many high-poverty States, we will not have the support that Governor Rick Perry once called for. We will have a broadened gap and a lack of services.

Many of the dollars that we've received in that program in Texas have gone into child protective services to protect abused and neglected children. They will no longer have that assistance. I hope in the course of the legislative process of the renewal of this legislation, we might eventually get TANF supplemental grants into the bill.

Today we see so many who are losing the opportunity to share in the American Dream. We have an opportunity to continue at least a minimal level of support to them. We should do that, but we should commit ourselves to doing even more.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I yield myself 5 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, the chairman, Mr. Davis, is correct. We have worked on this together. We have participated in hearings and have learned together and cooperated on this very important subject to which we may bring differing perspectives but a common goal of wanting to respond to the needs of America's most vulnerable children.

I believe that this bipartisan legislation which I do fully support, is important; however, it is also important to understand what we support and where we have differences and to understand what this legislation accomplishes and what it fails to accomplish. This bill is certainly preferable to allowing two very important laws to expire next week.

Each year, over 700,000 children here in America become victims of abuse and neglect, perpetrated by the very people who are supposed to love and care for them. I think most Americans, as do my wife, Libby, and I, when we're back home in Texas and surrounded by Clara, Zayla, and Ella, our three granddaughters, believe it's just almost incomprehensible that parents or grandparents could cause harm to a member of their own families. Yet that is the reality that too many of our children face. One expert came to our committee during the hearing and suggested that, once every 6 hours of every day, a child dies in America as a result of abuse.

I agree that both the Child Welfare Services and the Promoting Safe and Stable Families laws should be renewed for another 5 years. I disagree that these programs should be continued at their current baseline funding levels since, with need growing and funding limited, too many of our most vulnerable children cannot access the services that they so desperately need. These are the children whose neglect not only produces problems for them, but will produce more problems for all of American society in the future. They are the children we should be helping today so that we are not incarcerating them after they have done harm to someone tomorrow.

Less than half of the children in foster care in America today receive federal assistance to help with the room and board. Today, 40 percent of children who are found to be victims of abuse and neglect don't receive any follow-up or intervention at all. That is a very big gap that will likely only grow over the course of the next 5 years with the legislation that we are renewing.

In my home State of Texas, the Promoting Safe and Stable Families Act accounts for a very significant source of funding to help our youngest Texans. According to one of our witnesses in committee, Dr. Jane Burstain of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin, funding from this program accounted for $2 of every $3 supporting child abuse and neglect prevention programs last year. In San Antonio, for example, these programs provide important resources to help vulnerable families through the Bexar County Child Welfare Board.

This bill also grants States support for parental substance abuse programs. My friend Darlene Byrne, a district judge in Austin, Texas, who helped establish the Family Treatment Drug Court that was partially funded by dollars from this act that we're renewing, writes that she has seen new babies who are not drug positive, moms and couples reunify with their families, and workers receive their GEDs or high school diplomas and find employment. Those are the people that these programs help.

In short, she says that this program has contributed in transforming lives and in helping to stop the cycle of drug abuse, poverty, and violence in Texas. It is important both to those who benefit directly and to all of us who have a stake in having folks participate to the full extent of their God-given potential, not posing dangers to the rest of our society.

Today's legislation also includes, as Mr. Davis indicated, some modest policy changes that strengthen the States' abilities to respond to at-risk children. Mr. Speaker, the bill, I believe, leaves too many problems unresolved. I think, though, in this current climate that the renewal of the legislation as it's proposed is the best that we can do for our at-risk children. This bill reauthorizes help to at least some children who become victims of maltreatment. It provides family support and activities to some vulnerable families, and it promotes adoption services for those children who cannot safely return to their biological parents.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 4 minutes to the former chair of this Subcommittee on Human Resources, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from California (Ms. Bass), one of the leaders on this subject of foster children, who came and testified to our committee based on her long experience working in the State of California in the assembly on this subject.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), who has been very active in a Foster Youth Financial Security Act.

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

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, some in this House have suggested earlier in the year that the programs embodied in this legislation, and everything else that opens opportunities through government support from Pell Grants to Title I funding for education to the school lunch program to Head Start, that all of these are ``welfare'' and should be cut. Fortunately, that approach is not being taken here today. We are reauthorizing, in a bipartisan way, these two very important programs that would expire next week.

Mr. Speaker, however, it should be noted that, much like somebody might be flatlined, we are flat funding the renewal of these programs, meaning that in 5 years we are authorizing the same amount of money for these programs, if it can be appropriated, that existed last year. That means that there are many needs in our country that will not be fully addressed in this legislation. It means that last year, if less than half of those in foster care received support for food and board, they will be in the same situation over the course of this legislation. It means that the 40 percent of children who are subject to abuse and neglect are unlikely to be able to access services as they were last year.

But renewing this legislation remains, despite those deficiencies, an important accomplishment in the current political environment. And, as Mr. Davis and a number of other speakers have noted, we have made some modest improvements.

Another of those not touched on yet is our work in this legislation to ensure that children in foster care can stay in the schools that they started in, even though they may be moved between families. That's an important part of adding a little certainty to the lives of children who have been abused or neglected and find themselves with a great deal of uncertainty.

It is for the improvements in this act and the recognition of what harm would be done if this act were not adopted here in a bipartisan way that so many child advocacy groups have joined in supporting it-- the Child Welfare League of America, First Focus, Zero to Three--as well as groups of those organizations that are involved in administering some of these funds: the National Conference of State Legislatures, the American Public Human Services Association, and the Conference of State Court Administrators.

I believe this legislation is important. It's important to get it adopted promptly. I hope the Senate will respond to our bipartisan approval today, as Mr. Davis has suggested they have already begun to do in the committee process, and move forward to see it fully adopted by next week. I urge all of my colleagues to join in supporting this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

I think it's clear that this resolution is just not my cup of tea, but I can tell you if we followed the path that was just recommended, Republicans could drive us deeper into recession or even depression.

It's as if the Republicans who are here today wanted to start Halloween early because they keep trying to bring back to life, as if it were some zombie, the specter of debt default that has already caused us so many problems.

Building on their earlier success in sowing panic and reaping fear in our global financial markets that contributed to the first-ever downgrade of our Nation's credit rating, these professional obstructionists are determined to keep trying to wreak havoc.

As families are demanding action on the economy, a response to jobs, the Republicans instead are focusing on pandering to a small group of people for whom reality doesn't seem to make much difference. The problem is reality has a Democratic bias when it comes to this question of the economy and job creation.

I think if the Republicans really want to help us close the debt gap, the best way to do that is to get this economy moving. An increase in economic growth will do more than any of the things that he just mentioned--some amendment that might be approved years from now--will do more to help us get the debt under control than most anything else.

Of course, how did we end up with the debt that we have today? Much of it is directly related to the policies of the Bush-Cheney years when Republicans were totally ignoring the issue of debt: unpaid wars, tax cuts based on the mythology that they would pay for themselves when they just dug us deeper into debt. And now we face the need to try to get our economy moving again. Their solution? Do less. Jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States.

I think one of the problems that we have here, and it afflicts the Democratic Party to some extent as well as the Republicans, but especially with our Republican colleagues, is that we've just got too many certified smart people here in Washington. They're so smart they know what they know; they just don't know what the American people are experiencing. You don't have very many people advising about this economic recovery.

Whoever had to drive a truck for a living? You don't have people who even had to worry about whether they could make their next truck payment. And you sure don't have people advising who've had their house foreclosed and had to move their family into a truck. But that's the plight that too many Americans face today, and we need to be responding to their legitimate concern that what we need to do is focus on the demand side of the equation and help improve demand and get this economy going again.

I like the idea of focusing on our roadways, our trucks, our crumbling bridges and the like, building the infrastructure that will help American business as well as the people who would do that construction work.

I believe that focusing on our infrastructure, our roads, bridges, our schools, focusing on what is happening inside our schools with so many teachers threatened with dismissal around the country with the cutback in State and local budgets, that's the kind of focus that can help get America moving and address the debt issues at the same time.

I would urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on today's empty political resolution so we can focus on what really makes a difference to working families across this country.

This Republican ploy is too clever by half. At the very same time Republican Senators are filibustering against bringing up this proposal in the Senate, the House Republicans are insisting on bringing it up here so they can vote it down. While it is imperfect and imbalanced, this Reid proposal protects educational opportunities for college students, it protects retirement security through Medicare and Social Security, and it provides

more important resources for public services than the reactionary House Republican budget.

With House Republicans still at fault for refusing to seek any type of middle ground, the Reid bill is the least worst alternative to avoid default.

As desperate as they were last night to cobble together a handful of votes to pass a partisan Boehner bill, they are even more desperate to defeat this reasonable middle ground because they insist it must have two-thirds of the votes of this body.

Let us join Democrats in unity to approve this proposal.

You know, yesterday when the Speaker failed to secure the votes for his misbegotten deal, I thought all these Republicans would need to get under way today was a professional physical therapist to help heal the twisted arms, the sprains, perhaps even a dislocation as all that pressure was applied by the Speaker to get those final votes; you know, a therapist to kind of fit the slings and apply the splints.

But, no, the professional obstructionists among the Republicans have yielded for far less than a deep muscle massage. All they need is a meaningless vote on an amendment that is designed to fail, that they know will never rewrite the United States Constitution the way they would like to rewrite it to enshrine a little Republican dogma into the supreme law of the land.

I will admit that, through the years, the balanced budget amendment has gained more interest on my part. It became much more appealing as I saw years of Republicans entering wars without paying for them, insisting upon the mythology--no, indeed, it's really a political theology of Republicans--that you can cut taxes, raise spending, and everything will work out okay.

Their approach, even though their experts told them these tax cuts would drive us into deficit, they insisted on the political alchemy that they could take tax cuts and turn them into surpluses, just as if they could turn hay into gold. If there were one vote I could take to do something about the George W. Bush administration dripping in red ink, I would certainly want to take it, but a constitutional amendment is not a solution. It's an excuse for not having a solution, for not grappling with the financial problems we have. And the only reason it's being brought up this weekend is just to delay this crisis nearer and nearer to the precipice to which this Republican irresponsibility has taken us.

The credit worthiness and the full faith and the credit of the United States is endangered by the refusal to adopt a balanced approach that would close some tax loopholes and reduce spending all at once. That's what we need. Instead of putting all the burden on the many, demand a little from the few at the top.

Mr. Speaker, my neighbors in Texas are saying work together to resolve this crisis without jeopardizing Medicare and Social Security. Adopt a balanced approach that balances the budget by closing some tax loopholes at the same time we cut spending.

But agreeing has not been possible so far when so many of our House colleagues pride themselves on being disagreeable. Instead of protecting the full faith and credit of these United States in the same manner as our Republican colleagues voted to do seven times for President George W. Bush, today's bill really represents little more than a ransom note from those who are using this critical issue to hold our country hostage.

As their price for ensuring our national creditworthiness, they demand that we jeopardize the security for the very young with educational opportunities, and for the old with Social Security and Medicare. Their ransom demands do not share the sacrifice, but they sure do spread the pain--to the young, to the old, to those who are trying to climb up the economic ladder or just not slide backwards.

They talk about tightening the belt. The only belt they're really tightening is right around the neck of the hostages that they've taken.

I believe now is the time to stand firm for those families and to affirm that America will always pay our bills by rejecting this bill and then moving forward with more reasonable legislation.

Only a year ago, Republicans were using every trick in the book to stop any Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. And you know, they never really stopped. The party of Wall Street bailouts, of Big Bank buddies, remains determined to deny our families basic, effective protection from credit abuses.

The lyrics of Grammy Award Winner Steve Earle, who grew up in Schertz, on the edge of San Antonio, ring true for so many families. ``You go to school and learn to read and write, so you can walk into the bank and sign away your life.'' Well, so many families were deceived in taking out mortgages or a credit card or a payday loan on terms in the fine print that only the big lenders understand. Many of these families were counting on a home, on a job, on a retirement plan, or maybe with their credit card, just to put clothes on the kids and food on the family's table.

Nobody was there to protect them from the tricks and traps that some creditors used to enrich themselves and to fleece consumers with loans with incredible interest rates. In too many of these transactions what were once known as ``loan sharks'' can today legally ply their trade.

If you're mugged on the street, you can lose your wallet. But if you're mugged on Wall Street, you can lose a lifetime of savings. That's why we need this new squad of financial cops whose sole job will be to protect those who borrow from abuse.

With foreclosures at near record highs in San Antonio and in Austin, now is not the time for a retreat by consumer law enforcement. Oppose this latest Republican attempt to roll back the power of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and oppose the effort to take cops off the beat when we need them the most.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I thank both of my colleagues from Texas for using this as an opportunity, not only to herald this important bill, but as well the importance of health care for our veterans in south Texas.

As a sponsor myself, through several sessions of this effort to strengthen health care in south Texas, I am pleased we are finally making some progress on it. We need to continue to redouble our efforts, whether it is there or at Audie Murphy, or at the burn center, or at Lackland, or, as with our success last Friday in Austin, Texas, where we broke ground on what will become the largest veterans' outreach clinic to provide outpatient care for our veterans of any place in the entire United States.

Of course, what brings us principally here today is the bill that Congressman Cuellar introduced and that I am a sponsor of, the bill to salute the veterans of Schertz, Texas, by renaming this as the Schertz Veterans Post Office. With so many in the Schertz area who have contributed so much to our Nation's freedom, there just aren't enough public buildings in Schertz to name all of them for the individual sacrifice that has occurred, so this bill very practically approaches the heroism and the contribution of so many veterans and their families in Schertz by renaming this building the Veterans Post Office.

Schertz' connection to our Armed Forces is a proud and storied history. Most of the community's growth began going back to a general store in the last century, in the 20th century. It began in the twenties and thirties with the Army's construction of what was then called in Hollywood and elsewhere the West Point of the Air, then Randolph Field before the Air Force was even formed.

Today, Randolph Field may be called Randolph Air Force Base and Schertz, Texas, may have had since 1990 a tripling of its population, but some things have not changed. One of those, since World War II-- 1946 and the end of that war, as the veterans were returning--has been the chartering and the continuation of the Veterans of Foreign War Post, commanded by Mike Espinola, and it is still a thriving heartbeat of community activities. Families are also still coming to Schertz, Texas. They're coming in droves. Even CNN recognized it as one of the best places to live anywhere in America.

So often, rapid change will divide rather than unite, and that could be especially true when you have people coming from, literally, all over the world to a community practically adjacent to a military base and otherwise filled with many commuters. But unlike so many other parts of our country, where folks return to the same street without a sense of neighborhood, the people in Schertz have maintained a community spirit that is reflected at the Schertz Family YWCA, which recently got the Strong Community award; at the many events families attend at Pickrell Park; or at a football game at Samuel Clemens High School. This renamed Veterans Post Office will help maintain that community spirit and will serve as an anchor and as a reminder of where Schertz came from, how it has grown, and the road ahead.

A while back, I stood at this very microphone to speak up for the renaming of a post office in south Austin on South Congress, which is the street that once connected San Antonio and Austin, for Sergeant Henry Ybarra, III, who was killed in Iraq. I remember the dedication service that we had there, joined by the Catholic War Veterans, the American GI Forum, LULAC, and The Knights of Columbus Council, in addition to the family and friends of Sergeant Ybarra. It meant a great deal to them, and I believe that the same thing, the same kind of inspiration which they feel every time they go into that hub of community activity, will be realized as well in Schertz, Texas.

Our veterans, whether they wore uniforms last week or decades ago, understand a fundamental truth: That our military is the strongest in the world because of the spirit and the bravery of the men and women who put on that uniform. As a grateful Nation, we must continue to honor their service by meeting their health care needs and by taking steps like today in the renaming of the Schertz Veterans Post Office. I think it's a step in the right direction.