Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize Dr. Lewis Druffner and congratulate him on earning the Joseph Saporito Lifetime of Service Award Winner.

For his volunteer work and for decades of work as a legendary family physician in Avoca, Dr. Lewis Druffner is the Sunday Dispatch Joseph A. Saporito Lifetime of Service Award selection for 2012.

Dr. Druffner grew up in Avoca, graduated from Scranton Prep in 1951, The University of Scranton in 1955 and Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He was the primary physician for three ships while serving with the U.S. Navy.

After his Navy hitch, he took over his father's family medical practice in Avoca, where Druffner is a legendry name in family medicine as Dr. Lewis Druffner and his father birthed generations of families in Avoca and surrounding towns. In a way, Dr. Druffner is different than past Saporito recipients in that he is being honored not just for volunteer work, but for his career as a family doctor which was, like his father's, as much about service to the community as it was work.

Dr. Druffner recently signed on to become a volunteer at the Care and Concern Health Clinic where he continues his lifetime work of helping patients as they recover from various ailments.

Dr. Druffner and his wife, Catherine, have six children: Elizabeth, of Avoca; Kathleen and Carl, both of Harrisburg; Michael, of Dayton, Ohio; Tommy, of Michigan; and Edward, of Downingtown. They also have five grandchildren.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the life and contributions of Mr. Charles A. Adonizio III who I congratulate on being recently named the Greater Pittston Person of the Year by the Pittston Dispatch.

Mr. Adonizio is the immediate past president of the Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce. He was selected for Person of the Year for his work in bringing the Hometown Heroes Memorial from idea to reality on the lawn of the chamber. The memorial honors the soldiers and police officers who lost their lives in the line of duty, and another who was severely wounded, from the Greater Pittston area in the past decade.

Adonizio's roots in the Greater Pittston area run deep. He was born in Pittston, graduated from Pittston Area High School, and eventually took over the area family insurance company, Atlas Insurance Group in 1982, from his father, who founded it in 1938. He later added a separate company, Atlas Realty Inc., in 1988, and the two companies are headquartered in the Keystone section of Plains Township.

He married the former Karen Delaney of Hughestown and they have two children. Kristie Adonizio, 22, is student at Champlain College in Burlington, Vt., and Chad Adonizio, 21, a student at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

In 2004, both of Adonizio's businesses received the Small Business of the Year award from the Greater Pittston Chamber of Commerce. He is president of the Greater Wilkes-Barre Association of Realtors, past director and president of the Greater Pittston YMCA and a founding director of Landmark Community Bank.

Please join me in congratulating Mr. Charles Adonizio III on his life and contributions and on being named the Greater Pittston Person of the Year by the Pittston Dispatch.

Mr. Speaker, this Friday, March 8, is the date of the official dinner of the Grand Marshal of the 16th Annual Carbon County St. Patrick's Day Parade, and today I rise to recognize the leadership and community service of this year's Parade Grand Marshal, Margaret ``Peggy Sue'' O'Donnell.

Peggy Sue's first real job was in the microfilm department in the Carbon County Courthouse in Jim Thorpe, where she worked

throughout high school and college. For the past 28 years, she has been a package car driver for United Parcel Service. She has received many citations for safe driving--quite a feat since she delivers packages to all of the businesses on Broadway and Race Streets in Jim Thorpe. As her customers (and their dogs) will attest, Peggy Sue is the face of UPS in Jim Thorpe, and her friendly and outgoing personality makes her an outstanding ambassador for her employer and profession in town.

She is a member of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Jim Thorpe. She is a charter member of the Ladies Ancient Order of Hibernians, Molly Maguire Division 1, Carbon County, and served as its president from 2008-2009. She has also held other volunteer positions in town and on the St. Patrick's Day Parade committee, including serving as an aide to 2003 Parade Grand Marshal John J. Mulligan.

Her ``Fighting Irish spirit'' has helped carry her through a courageous bout with cancer. Diagnosed in July 2012, she feels it has been the continuous prayers and support of friends and family that has been the best and most important medicine. Her illness has brought together a community in a positive way that no one could have imagined. She may have lost her voice, but she has never lost her radiant spirit.

Mr. Speaker, I send my highest congratulations to ``Peggy Sue'' O'Donnell on being named the Grand Marshal of this year's Carbon County St. Patrick's Day Parade, and my thoughts and prayers are with her on this day and always.

I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin.

I'm here to address the draconian and irresponsible and indiscriminate effects of this ridiculous sequestration program that's slated to take effect on March 1. I use the word ``indiscriminate'' advisedly. It is indiscriminate. It is as if the government were a surgeon and seeking to take out a cancer, a lesion making a patient sick. Instead of being given a scalpel to take out that lesion, the surgeon is forced to use a meat cleaver.

That is an appropriate analogy for what this sequestration is doing because it is an indiscriminate set of cuts across the board to the discretionary spending in the United States. No responsible business person would ever engage in such a budgetary process. No one with any sense would do this in the government. And yet we're left with this.

Instead of repealing it and replacing it promptly, what we see is that the Speaker is instead engaging in finger-pointing and in the blame game to avoid moving forward and fixing the problem in the first place. It's irresponsible, and it has to be dealt with differently.

I say that if Congress cannot come up with a replacement to the sequester before the end of this week, we should eliminate the sequester entirely. One million working Americans should not be forced to pay the price for what is nothing more and nothing less than stubbornness and hard-headedness. We would prefer to replace the sequester with a balanced approach to deficit reduction.

The Progressive Caucus already introduced a bill called the Balancing Act that reflects what the American people already voted for this past November. The Progressive Caucus Balancing Act replaces the sequester with a balanced approach to new revenue and necessary Pentagon cuts, and it creates jobs all over the country. It equalizes the cuts we've already made with revenue by closing tax loopholes for America's wealthiest individuals and corporations.

But we shouldn't just sacrifice our economic recovery because Republicans are unwilling to vote for one single penny in new revenue, new contributions from their billionaire friends and corporations. We have to look at what these cuts mean in the sequester. The sequester involves 70,000 children being kicked off Head Start. No one in this Chamber disagrees about the importance of Head Start. Early childhood education is absolutely essential in creating the foundation for learning in children all over the world. And that's what Head Start is about. There will be 70,000 American children kicked off Head Start. That's what happens when you use a meat cleaver instead of a scalpel.

We're talking about more than a million kids who will see their schools lose education funding. We're talking about emergency responders who will lose their jobs, meaning slower response times and weaker disaster preparedness. We're talking about layoffs and furloughs for Social Security workers that is going to cause delays and hassles for millions and millions of Social Security recipients--people who depend month in and month out on their Social Security checks to put food on their table.

In my district, the 17th Congressional District of Pennsylvania, we have one county--Schuykill County--where 149,000 people live. Out of 149,000 people who live there, fully 38,000 of them subsist on Social Security checks. If those checks are delayed, if those people get hassled getting those checks because of this sequester, that is a crying shame.

We're talking about cuts to air traffic controllers, for those of us who have to fly around as part of our jobs. We're talking about cuts to airport security agents. All of this is going to mean longer waits, travel disruptions.

The consequences of more massive budget cuts are real. This isn't a game we're talking about. In fact, economic growth in the United States is going to slow because of this sequester. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost and more people will have to rely on government assistance to meet their basic needs than ever before. This is exactly the opposite of what we need to be doing in the United States, and it's the opposite of what the American people asked for in the November election. It's time that our colleagues across the

aisle--the Republicans--wake up to what is really about to happen to American families. It's time that we eliminate the sequester.

I want to talk to you a little bit about specific examples of what we expect to happen in my home State, the Keystone State of Pennsylvania. If sequestration was to take effect, we're talking about job losses to the Tobyhanna Army Depot, which is something that for the last 60 years has provided electronic refurbishing to Army equipment. We're talking about command and computer and communications control to Army equipment that is refurbished right there in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, by as many as 5,400 dedicated, patriotic people supporting our warfighters for the last 60 years with this kind of electronic equipment.

We're talking about cuts to Tobyhanna Army Depot of $309 million over 10 years as a result of this reckless and irresponsible sequester.

We're talking about teachers and schools. Pennsylvania is going to lose approximately $26.4 million in funding for primary and secondary education, putting around 360 teacher and teachers' aide jobs at risk.

About 29,000 fewer students would be served and approximately 90 fewer schools would receive funding if this nonsensical sequester program goes through.

Head Start and Early Head Start services in Pennsylvania alone would be eliminated for approximately 2,300 children, reducing access to critical, critical early education.

And then children with disabilities on top. Education for children with disabilities: Pennsylvania will lose about $21.4 million in funds for about 260 teachers, teachers' aides, and staff who help children with disabilities in school.

Even worse, protections for clean air and clean water. Pennsylvania would lose as much as $5.7 million in environmental funding to ensure clean air and air quality, as well as prevent pollution from pesticides and hazardous waste.

In addition, Pennsylvania could lose another $1.5 million in grants for fish and wildlife protection.

We're going to sacrifice our schools, we're going to sacrifice the environment, all in the name of stubbornness and wrongheadedness--mule headedness--on the part of the people who should be coming to the people, the Republicans, who refuse to engage in any sort of responsible revenue legislation whatsoever.

Finally, military readiness. In Pennsylvania, about 26,000 civilian Department of Defense employees would be furloughed, reducing gross pay in Pennsylvania alone by around $150.1 million in total.

This isn't a joke. We talk about deadlines here in Congress; there are hard deadlines and there are soft deadlines. We have seen Congress only moves when there's a hard deadline, when there's an actual cliff we're about to go over.

This is irresponsible in itself because I think--it is the case that many here in this Chamber believe that March 1 is a ``soft deadline'' because all that's happening are furlough notices are going out and people are not actually losing their jobs for another 30 days or so. For example, the Tobyhanna Army Depot, furlough notices are slated to go out in the middle of March for furloughs that actually take place at the end of April. There are those in this Chamber who think that's a soft deadline that doesn't really matter, it's just a furlough notice anyway.

Well, I'm here to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that furlough notices go to real families--real families who have to plan for their budgets, real families who have to plan on how they're going to feed their children and clothe them and pay the mortgage and keep the car running and keep gas in the car. They have to think about how they're going to do all these things when they're holding a piece of paper that says you're losing your job in 30 days. It's cold comfort for them, for those families, to hear that, well, this may not happen when they're holding it in black and white, a letter that tells them they're going to be out of work in 30 days.

This is no way to run a government; this is no way to make a budget; and this is no way to be responsible with the finances of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, Saturday, February 23, marks the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Monsignor Farrell Division #2 Chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, located in Carbondale, PA. I rise to congratulate this important Chapter of the Order on this high accomplishment. I also congratulate four founding members of the organization for their foresight in the formation of this Chapter and for their continued support of the work of the Ancient Order of Hibernians. In 1973, Mr. Jerome Brennan, the Honorable James Munley, Attorney Robert Munley and William Pryle founded this Chapter and dedicated it to charitable works, the preservation of Irish culture in America, and the education of the next generation of students about the contributions of Irish immigrants throughout our nation's history.

The Ancient Order of Hibernians is America's oldest Irish Catholic Fraternal Organization; it was founded concurrently in the coal-mining regions of Pennsylvania and in New York City in May 1836. The organization provided invaluable support to the vast influx of Irish immigrants fleeing the Great Hunger in

the late 1840s, offering both economic aid as well as an introduction to a new culture of opportunity in America. The members of the Order were among the first to welcome new immigrants to their communities, preserving many of the old traditions of a far-away homeland while simultaneously introducing new traditions that were part of a uniquely American experience.

The Monsignor Farrell Division #2 Chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and its founders exemplify the core principles of charity, concern for our fellow man, and commitment to educating students about the sacrifices and accomplishments of prior generations. On this momentous occasion, please accept my congratulations and my gratitude for your continuing service to our community.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in advance of the Forward on Climate Rally this Sunday here in Washington, D.C., to support the thousands of people en route to this town right now and to urge this Congress to keep environmental issues among our top priorities.

As President Obama stressed in his State of the Union address earlier this week, there is an undeniable trend of warmer climates and a rise in the frequency of natural disasters which cause devastation across this Nation.

We are headed in the wrong direction, and we need serious action to protect our planet. We can fight global warming while still growing our economy. We can do it by investing in clean, renewable resources like wind and solar with equipment produced right here in the United States of America.

By dealing seriously with environmental issues, we can boost our economy, decrease our reliance on foreign oil, and leave a better world for our children. These should be our top priorities as Members of Congress, as citizens, and as parents, and it is time these issues receive the attention that they deserve.

Madam Speaker, we have before us this question of allowing indiscriminate and harmful cuts to our armed services and other vital national governmental works.

I agree we must address the debt and the deficit, but it's not a new problem, and we have fixed it before. Right now, our national debt stands at about 105 percent of GDP, gross domestic product. In 1946, it was close to 122 percent, and we fixed it--not by austerity, not by slash and burn; we fixed it by investing in America. We built our national highway system. We made our armed services the envy of the world. We even rebuilt Europe and Japan. We went to the Moon, for heaven's sake.

By the 1960s, our economic growth was so great that it was impossible for anyone to complain about the Roosevelt debt with a straight face. That's what we need to do now. We need to believe in ourselves. We need to invest in the great engines of our economic recovery, our infrastructure, and our middle class.

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge the Members, be bullish on America and repeal and replace this dangerous sequester.

Mr. Speaker, this Saturday, January 26, marks the 115th anniversary of Council 302 of the Wilkes-Barre Knights of Columbus, and I rise today to congratulate the Knights of Columbus on this remarkable accomplishment and to recognize the leadership and community service of William J. Uggiano, the immediate past Grand Knight of the organization. Mr. Uggiano served the Council for the period July 2010-June 2012, and he is being honored by the Knights of Columbus as part of the 115th anniversary celebration.

William Uggiano previously served his country with distinction during a long career in the Navy, which included tours of duty on four different warships, the last of which was the USS Guam. He was even baptized at sea on the Guam off the coast of Liberia. He retired in 1999 and enrolled in Luzerne Community College where he received an Associates degree in computer information systems. While attending college to get the degree, he began working at the Wilkes-Barre Veterans Administration hospital as an IT specialist in the Office of Information and Technology, and he is still employed there today.

Mr. Uggiano is a past Commander of the Italian American Veterans of Luzerne County--Post No. 1, Treasurer of the American Federal of Government Employees (AFGE)--Local 1699, and Treasurer of the Diamond City chapter of the American Wine Society. He is married to the former Javette Swinney of Portsmouth, Virginia, and he and Javette have six children and thirteen grandchildren.

Willam Uggiano exemplifies the Knights of Columbus founding core principles of charity toward others, unity for the good of us all, fraternity with one another, and patriotism marked by devotion to both God and country. Please accept my congratulations on this momentous occasion.