Floor Statements

Our Republican colleagues have chattered endlessly about making hard choices, but most of the hard choices they make today are hard only on the hungry, hard on hungry children, hard on hungry seniors. They've got tremendous cuts to the Women, Infant, and Children nutritional assistance. It means as many as 350,000 women and infants will be denied assistance, including tens of thousands in my home State of Texas.

They made a hard choice. Instead of putting food on the table for those women and infants, they chose to send $147 million to Brazilian cotton farmers. I think that's not just a hard choice; it's a very bad choice. Those young children will never achieve their full God-given potential if they arrive at kindergarten malnourished.

Our food banks, are doing a tremendous job. In Texas, they get the support of grocers, of retailers, of private contributors, but they need this emergency food assistance. I've been to those food banks. I've seen some of those rural food banks in times of economic distress that are bare. The cupboard is bare, and the lines are long to get that assistance. Republicans made a hard choice, hard on the hungry.

The Republicans have finally found that the only bank they don't want to bail out is the food bank. And the food bank needs that assistance. I say that we should reject this bill that takes the most from those who have the least.

Today's vote represents just one more step in the Republican effort to dismantle Medicare. This contrived procedure, demanding an extraordinary two-thirds vote, right after the Republican majority announces they won't vote for it, is just a gimmick. You don't have to be much of a math whiz to know if you don't have half the votes in this body, you probably are not going to get two-thirds of the vote.

But it's not about the vote. It's about Republicans, who are withholding their support of an eventual necessary increase in the limit, by demanding that any agreement on that include a weakening of Medicare by imposing something like the Ryan Republican Medicare voucher plan that they all voted for, or some other scheme, to just let Medicare wither on the vine.

Republicans are willing to jeopardize the full faith and credit of the United States of America, exposing us to great potential economic harm. They think the President will once again yield to their ransom demands, as he did last December, by yielding on more tax breaks for billionaires.

Don't yield to this maneuver, Mr. President. Say ``no'' to gimmicks and say ``yes'' to Medicare, one of the best programs ever initiated by this Congress to ensure a little retirement security.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

This Republican budget does offer a path to prosperity. Unfortunately, it's China's prosperity.

For America, they offer a fast track to mediocrity, a descent into economic insecurity. It's the wrong path to global competitiveness. It's not that the level of our debt or the size of our tax rates is unimportant; it's that when you have such a narrow focus that you talk about little else, you forget America's other competitive strengths, our workforce, the need to invest to ensure the strongest and best- educated workforce anywhere in the world, and our infrastructure that allows American businesses to prosper across our country. It's also about preserving a broad middle class so that more Americans share in the bounty of this country instead of going to some third-world extreme where all the wealth is concentrated at those at the top of the ladder.

Today we have to choose. Instead of eliminating $4 billion from early education and student financial assistance so that students can achieve all of their God-given potential, why not ask General Electric to at least pay the level of taxes that the mail clerks that work for it pay?

Instead of eliminating $3 billion from our crumbling roads and bridges, why not ask those giant corporations that currently get a $3 billion annual deduction when they borrow money to build a factory overseas without recognizing any of the income from that factory, to begin to pay their fair share. And instead of accepting this Republican nonsense that we have to have more tax breaks for the very wealthy in our country, why not use the same money to ensure a little dignity for our seniors in nursing homes across the country?

We need to stop exporting jobs and manufacturing and stop exporting our tax revenues overseas and begin developing a more competitive workforce right here in America.

I will yield my time, but I will never yield to those Republicans who don't demand any sacrifice from Wall Street and all those big-bonus recipients but do demand that the rest of us pay for balancing their budget.

Oppose this Republican budget.

This budget is just not my cup of tea. When the Republicans use the terms ``modernize'' or ``reform,'' what they really have in mind is a four letter word: less--less retirement security, less health security, less economic security.

This budget does not share the sacrifice. It focuses the pain on the young, on the very old, on those who are trying to climb up the economic ladder, or just barely prevent themselves from slipping backward.

``Fair and balanced,'' that's a most inaccurate media logo, but it's a spot-on description of the budgetary path we ought to be on. Our budget should be balanced, but not unfairly on the backs of those least able to bear it, like our elderly in nursing homes. It's troubling enough that this Republican budget demands even more tax cuts for those at the top and our largest corporations. But what's truly outrageous is that they seek balance by cutting the opportunity for our young people to get all the education they are willing to work for.

How can our economy be second to none when Republicans again and again turn to education to cut first? Nor can you fix this budget or make up revenue lost by squeezing so much out of those on fixed incomes. We need to be creating jobs with job training and education and infrastructure investment.

The size of our deficit, the level of our taxes, those are important, but they are not the sole lens through which the strength of America should be viewed. We want an America where the young have educational opportunity, where the not so young have the dignity of their old age, and a bigger middle class shares in the success of our country. To secure our long-term future, every American can give a little. But this unfair proposal asks little from those with much, and so much from those who have so little.

As one who voted for cutting some of President Obama's spending requests last year and who has already voted three times this year to cut spending from the budget, I believe we do need to ferret out every bit of unnecessary spending, to demand greater efficiency and to seek common ground on securing our long-term financial future by addressing our national debt. But this resolution is only a belated companion to the deal that tied a Christmas bow around another tax cut for the wealthiest few in December. It represents another unbalanced approach to achieving balance in our budget. There is no shared sacrifice here.

And like that December deal, this concession literally sets up tomorrow's demand for adoption of the House Republican budget--a pathway to less economic, educational, and health care security.

Instead of asking for a dime from ExxonMobil or other polluters, this deal makes severe cuts in the budget to assure us clean air and clean water. Instead of asking for a dollar from General Electric or another of these giant corporations that won't pay their fair share of taxes, this places the burden on hundreds of thousands of young Americans who are trying to seek a future job in the United States.

Almost one-fourth of the budget is eliminated for YouthBuild, a program that provides vital education and employment skills to young people. In Austin, I have seen up close the difference that our local YouthWorks makes in trails constructed, in homes weatherized, in the vital employment and training skills provided. With every energy efficient home for which a foundation is laid, a foundation is also laid for the future of some enterprising young Texans. Additionally, about another 100,000 young people at universities like Texas State will lose the counseling, academic instruction, tutoring and encouragement from TRIO that helps them achieve academic success.

That's not balanced. Fair and balanced? Yes, I know it's a distorted slogan, but I think it could have real meaning for our budget. But this budget is balanced on our young people and our future. We need a budget that's fair. This is not it.

The next sad chapter in Republican Fantasyland is being written here today. Last month, they couldn't tell the difference between Big Bird and big government. Now they insist that dirty air is really good for us. They live in a fact-free zone when the facts don't support their point of view, insisting that big polluters know best and that good science should be ignored.

The Clean Air Act for the last 40 years has improved air quality and saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Unfortunately, my home State of Texas is one of the world's leading carbon polluters, and it is also one of the leaders in condoning lawlessness by those polluters. Foul air fouls lives and especially young lungs. For my three granddaughters and their generation, particularly for the more than 23,000 children in my home county who are suffering from asthma, we need to ensure clean air, and that ought to be a given, not just a goal.

Science-based decisions, not ideologically driven nonsense, should guide us. I stand with the American Lung Association and with a large number of scientists across many disciplines who call for this bill's rejection. And in its drive to interfere with our health, this same Republican proposal creates the very type of uncertainty that stands in the way of more job creation throughout Texas, and Texas moving to become the leading wind provider in the country. Those wind turbines could be built in our State. Solar energy could be expanding in our State. But a climate of uncertainty to which this bill adds even more will interfere with the start-ups, with the new ideas that keep us at the forefront of creating clean jobs instead of sending all those jobs over to China and other parts of the world.

This is a bad bill for our economy, and it is a bad bill for the future health of our country. I urge its rejection.

While Republicans insist today that NPR is a four-letter word, the real attack is on KUT and similar public radio across America. Two hundred fifty thousand Texans rely upon KUT's in-depth radio news scrutiny of the Texas legislature and local government. The only ``bias'' of those who begin with Morning Edition is a bias for truth. My constituents tune in to KUT because they want fact-based, not faux-based, not FOX-based coverage.

Like their continued assault on PBS, these Republicans just can't tell the difference between Big Government and Big Bird. While they pander to Wall Street, they continue to want to terminate support of Sesame Street. ``All Things Considered,'' their attack really has nothing to do with balancing the budget. It is an ideological crusade against balanced news and educational programing. Cutting access to the power of knowledge decreases our ability to hold our government accountable. Don't weaken our democracy by weakening this vital source of reality-based journalism.

Don't cut KUT. Public radio serves the public interest.

I thank the gentleman.

I voted previously to repeal these 1099 reporting requirements. But for broad Republican opposition, these requirements would have been repealed a long time ago.

I was a little amused to hear one of our Republican colleagues actually say this morning that he is bewildered as to why there are all these requirements on small businesses around the country as a result of this provision. I can cure your bewilderment: Get a mirror out and look at the mirror. You will see the Republicans who voted against repealing this provision last year.

No, this is not about repealing 1099. It is about shifting the burden onto working families while at the same time protecting insurance monopolies.

Despite the vigorous, determined efforts of these Republicans to undermine every aspect of health insurance reform, under current law, working families will receive an opportunity to access health insurance. Each year, the government will match some of what workers pay for their health insurance. The precise amount of the match is determined by how low a worker's salary is. A minimum-wage worker would get a little more assistance than someone who is at a little higher level. This bill ensures that the health insurance companies will get to keep all of that Federal match, but it treats the working families considerably differently.

If you have an employee who really shows ability and who may have a fairly menial or mundane job but who does it and does it with pride and does it well and if that employee excels and if the employer rewards him with a bonus and recognizes that that employee is really trying hard and then decides we're going to give you a little promotion and that you'll get a little more pay or, perhaps, as with so many families around this country, that employee decides ``I'll never make it for my family on this. I'm going to moonlight. I'm going to take an extra job,'' then under any of these developments for the enterprising worker, the Republicans today propose a penalty, a tax on success.

At the end of that year, after those law-abiding employees have properly estimated their income from those 12 months earlier, if their pay has gone up a dollar over the level, they'll get a steep penalty. They may have to pay literally thousands of dollars back even though they only got a bonus of a few

hundred dollars. They would owe the value, perhaps, of the entire credit to the IRS.

What type of people are we talking about?

If the law had been fully effective, as I wish it had been this year, and if workers who were earning $43,560 got a bonus that took them up to $43,600, they would have owed the full amount of the credit at the end of the year. $1,000 or perhaps $3,000 or $4,000 to a family as a penalty--as a tax on success--is a big amount to that family.

Understand the dimensions of how big the burden is that they want to shift to working families: According to their own report on this bill, the total is almost $25 billion over the next decade. We're not talking about a small amount of money. We're talking about a significant amount of money in this Republican penalty on success.

Why haven't they been out here responding to this penalty on success? They want to refer to these people as ``cheats.''

These people aren't cheats. They're people who are the best of America, who are striving and working to get ahead, who then get penalized for their success.

They have no answer because there is no answer. We should have passed this bill last year and passed it by paying for it by closing international corporate tax loopholes. Naturally they resist that just as they resist any attempt to control insurance monopolies.

Vote ``no'' on this penalty for success that would be imposed on our working families. Vote against this piece of legislation.

When Texas received $3.25 billion in education stimulus funds over the objection of every Texas Republican, Governor Perry played a shell game that left Texas schools not a dime better off than if no Federal aid had come in the first place. That is the only reason that, last summer, all 12 Democratic Texas Members--from Chet Edwards to Silvestre Reyes, from Henry Cuellar to Gene Green--united, joined together, in offering our Save Our Schools amendment, which is today Federal law.

Tonight's proposal seeks to nullify that protection so that Governor Perry can reach out for another Federal bailout even if it means taking $830 million away from Texas schoolchildren. Defectively written, this amendment fails to repeal anything. The enforcement funds that it would limit are not in this bill. They are already appropriated. Vote ``no'' on a very flawed amendment for a failed purpose.

Stop begging Washington for help, Governor. Just sign the application.

I thank the gentleman.

I enter in the record the request of education organizations from all over the State of Texas for this amendment and the statements of the Texas delegation last year and again this year.

Governor Perry may have come up here on a book tour for his book ``Fed Up,'' but he's not afraid to ask for second and third helpings of Federal aid even though it takes it away from our schoolchildren.

There is a clear path to getting this money. All the Governor needs to do is to sign a three-page application, like the one he signed to get that $3.25 billion of aid he used for purposes other than education. Though this is presented as an attempt to repeal our amendment, it does not repeal it. It is a meaningless gesture, though it does cloud up the possibility that some Federal court may suggest that Texas is not entitled to any money.

Let's not shut the door of opportunity to our children. Reject this amendment.

June 22, 2010.

Hon. Arne Duncan,

Secretary, Department of Education, Washington, DC.

Hon. Steny Hoyer,

Majority Leader, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. David Obey,

Chairman, Committee on Appropriations, House of

Representatives, Washington, DC.

Dear Secretary Duncan, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader

Hoyer, and Chairman Obey: Last year, before the education

Stabilization funds were provided to Texas, many of us joined

together to urge you to ensure that these funds would

increase the funding for Texas schools instead of merely

replacing state education funding. Unfortunately, as the

legislation was written the State was able to reduce its own

obligations to fiscally support public education and supplant

those funds with $3.25 billion of federal stablization

monies. As the Administration considers additional emergency

education funding to save teachers' jobs, we urge you to

prevent history from repeating itself and ensure that any

funds Texas receives go to help Texas schools, teachers, and

students.

We support the legislative language that Members of the

Texas Delegation have proposed that would guarantee these

emergency federal education funds are actually spent on

education in Texas. As drafted, this Texas fix has no impact

on any other state and would ensure that the law is

implemented as Congress and the Administration intended: to

save and create teacher jobs. Specifically, this language

includes four provisions that we would like to see included

in any emergency education jobs bill:

Limits the additional requirements to states with Texas-

sized rainy day funds;

Requires the emergency education jobs funds be distributed

to Local Education Agencies within the state according to the

Title I-A formula;

Prohibits supplanting of state Title I-type funds with

these new emergency federal funds for education jobs; and

Requires maintenance of state primary and secondary

education support in FY11, FY12, and FY13 at the current

percentage of revenue provided for FY11.

This language does not prohibit cuts to education in

Texas's budget, but it does prevent the state from singling

out education for more cuts than other budget items due to

the influx of funds from the emergency federal monies for

education jobs. With Texas facing a serious budget shortfall

in the coming biennial budget, the last thing we need to

allow is these funds to be diverted to fill non-education

gaps in the budget. We hope that you will ensure that Texas

school districts do not fall through the legislative cracks

this time around.

The Texas superintendents and education organizations

listed below are in agreement with this letter and have given

permission to add their names in support.

Texas Superintendents

(Total of 38 From Across the State of Texas)

Wanda Bamberg, Aldine ISD; Meria Carstarphen, Austin ISD;

Jim T. Rumage, Banquete ISD; Jamey Harrision, Bridge City

ISD; Brett Springston, Brownsville ISD; Reece Blincoe,

Brownwood ISD; Jeff Turner, Coppell ISD; Scott Elliff, Corpus

Christi ISD; David Anthony, Cypress-Fairbanks ISD; Michael

Hinojosa, Dallas ISD.

Leland Williams, Dickinson ISD; Frances Rocha, Edcouch-Elsa

ISD; Bob Wells, Edna ISD; Lorenzo Garcia, El Paso ISD; Melody

Johnson, Fort Worth ISD; Paul Clore, Gregory-Portland ISD;

Jeremy Lyon, Hays CISD; Terry Grier, Houston ISD; Emilia

Castro, Kingsville ISD; A. Marcus Nelson, Laredo ISD.

Michelle Carroll Smith, Lytle ISD; James Ponce, McAllen

ISD; Richard A. Middleton, North East ISD; John M. Folks,

Northside ISD; John Kuhn, Perrin-Whitt CISD; Sharron L.

Doughty, Port Aransas ISD; Alfonso Obregon, Robstown ISD;

Robert J. Duron, San Antonio ISD; Mike Quatrini, San Elizario

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, with last year's important health insurance reform law, we provided real guarantees to American families against insurance monopoly abuses. Today, Republicans tell these families, ``Forget the binding guarantees. We have 12 platitudes for you.''

This isn't a Republican prescription--this is a placebo. And for the American middle class, it's a very bitter pill indeed.

Yesterday, House Republicans, in a remarkable measure, with one vote, decided to increase the national debt, reduce the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund, raise insurance premiums, and charge seniors more for their health care.

During the last 12 years that these Republicans were in charge, 6 of them with near total domination of the government here in Washington under the Bush-Cheney administration, they failed to enact even one of these 12 platitudes in this flimsy 2-page excuse of a bill. Twelve health care platitudes up now, missing in action for 12 years.

Who wouldn't be for some of them? They are broad platitudes that propose something that they apparently kept hidden under a bushel for the last 16 years and now will unveil. Well, I think it will just be the same old tired, rejected, retread Republican proposals to give more income tax breaks to those at the top.

If you believe that they have got something new to offer to genuinely reform our health care system in a way that will help middle-class Americans instead of health insurance monopolies, I think you will want to buy some of that Republican ice cream that helps you lose weight. Our families don't need Republican platitudes; they need real help.

I will have to stay I think the tea party types are right about one thing. There are dangers from soaring debt, dangers they forgot for a decade. There are dangers from Big Government. But, you know, that's not the only threat our families face. They face threats from big banks and from big insurance monopolies.

Our middle-class families are threatened not only from the challenges of government, but from the big pharmaceutical monopolies that charge our people more than anyplace in the world, from the giant insurance monopolies. And sometimes, sometimes our families need government to come down on our side because otherwise those giant economic forces will take advantage of our families by writing out the very protection that the sick and injured need the most, protection that they write into the fine print of an insurance policy that no ordinary person can understand, where they are told that they are not covered anymore, that they have a preexisting condition, that you have reached your policy limits and cannot get the care that your doctor says is vital to sustain your life, that this policy just doesn't cover sick people or that it can be rescinded.

I say we need to provide people genuine protection. That's what we did last year. That's what they want to eliminate this year. Let's be on the side of the people, not the 12 Republican platitudes to benefit insurance monopolies.

Mr. Speaker, the choice here is whether to give more money to insurance monopolies or to leave just a little bit in the pockets of middle class Americans. But for House Republicans, always putting insurance companies first seems to be a preexisting condition.

This bill isn't repeal and replace; it is repeal and forget--forget the health care needs of millions of Americans, forget the hundreds of billions of dollars that with this repeal they add to our Federal debt.

Within a year, Allison, a 23-year-old from Bastrop, Texas, who is completing her college degree while caring for her mother as her mother faces another round of breast cancer, would lose her health insurance.

Emily, from Wimberley, who is battling cancer herself, would now face lifetime limits on what doctor-recommended care her insurer will pay for. Of course, if her husband loses or changes his job, she won't have any insurance at all.

Charlotte, an Austin senior, would have to pay more for prescriptions and preventative health care, while Republicans reduce the solvency of the Medicare Trust Fund by more than a decade.

Family budgets would be crushed by this bill as health care costs remain the leading cause of credit card debt and bankruptcy. This same devastating Republican bill would also hike the Federal debt. That's why Republicans have rejected pay-as-you-go budgeting and instead will borrow from the Chinese to pay for this legislation.

Yes, repeal is a priority for the insurance companies and their apologists, but neither our family budgets nor our Federal budget can afford it. I believe that every American is entitled to a family doctor, not to an appointment with a bankruptcy judge because of soaring health care costs.

Our energetic and talented colleague Gabby Giffords was doing what she does so well, the core responsibility of every Member: listening to her constituents in an open public forum. Young and old, Americans of all political philosophies gathered to meet with her.

This is the very type of neighborhood office hours that so many of us hold. I have held many of them throughout central Texas. And this is the very type of accessibility and openness that is fundamental to our democracy and critical to a society that recognizes that change is achieved through ballots, not bullets.

Less than a year ago, another disturbed individual expressed his anger by crashing his airplane into a building in Austin, Texas, that housed IRS employees, causing great death and destruction. Incredibly, a Facebook page was erected quickly in his honor. What I said then I would reemphasize today: We must turn down the volume on hate to discourage more such horrors.

Debate, vigorous debate, is at the very heart of our democracy. Sometimes it is heated and strongly worded. Such strong discourse helps us to set America's course. But violence is not discourse. It debases our democracy. Violence can kill a human being, but it cannot kill the truth. In a free and open market of ideas, truth will ultimately prevail.

In the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose life and work we celebrate this very month, ``I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.'' We pray for those lost and the many who still suffer from this great tragedy.

If you're hit by a truck this afternoon or your child contracts a dread disease, your future ought not to depend on the fine print in an insurance policy you didn't have anything to do with writing. No insurance monopoly should stand between you and your doctor.

Unfortunately, the Republican Party has become little more than an arm of the insurance monopolies. They ask for a vote to further empower those monopolies, and we ask for a vote to empower American families. A vote to repeal is a vote to maintain health care costs as the leading cause of bankruptcy and credit card debt in this country. It is a vote to require seniors to pay more, more for prescription drugs, and more for diabetes and cancer screenings.

We can stand with American families today or we can kneel to the insurance monopolies. The choice is clear--let's vote for American families.

Mr. Speaker, on day one of this new Congress, these Republicans take a giant step backwards. They profess such great concern about their ability to cut wasteful spending.

First off, they abandon pay-as-you-go budgeting, returning to the Bush-Cheney approach of endless borrowing. They claim they could cut so much, but they reject a rule that requires them to cut spending as one way to offset revenue losses for each new tax break they approve. Their misleading CutGo just cuts fiscal discipline and says to go borrow from the Chinese. These Republicans are like the fellow who bellies up to the bar and says, Just one more round of tax breaks for my buddies. Put it on my tab.

Except it's our tab.

All Americans will pay for their endless borrowing for endless tax breaks. They are indifferent to our national debt except when it comes to cutting vital initiatives that they wanted to weaken or eliminate in the first place.

We need pay-as-you-go budgeting just like a family that faces a high credit card debt and knows it can't balance its budget by cutting off its income or by simply cutting school lunches or other necessities. Neither can America afford to distort this budget.

Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, in this dealing-making, it became more important to get a deal--any deal--than to secure an agreement that reflects our American values and accomplishes our goal of renewed economic growth.

This bill is largely a mishmash of rejected Republican ideas that cost too much to accomplish too little. Under this misbegotten deal, we will borrow immense amounts of money from the Chinese and others to provide the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans with a tax cut that is greater than the median income of a Central Texas family for an entire year. This is the same fortunate 1 percent, for the most part, that took two-thirds of all of the income gains in the country during the heart of the Bush years. That is not fair, and it will not encourage significant economic growth.

The Republicans will rule this House for the next 2 years. Let's not give them an early start today. I would vote for a bill that creates more jobs and reduces the debt. This is not it.