Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, the other day, I received a letter from a constituent, Lana Kunkel. Like many Vermonters, she is concerned about the doubling of Stafford student loan interest rates scheduled for July 1.

This is very personal for her. She used the Stafford loan to get a good education and start a career as a nurse. She is now a contributing member of the community. She is also the granddaughter of former U.S. Vermont Representative and Senator Bob Stafford, for whom the Stafford student loan program is named. Here is what she had to say about her grandfather:

I know my grandfather's intention for these loans was

accessibility and not profit. I understand that times are

tough and people are looking everywhere, but this is just not

right. My grandfather was known as a gentle giant, but if he

were alive today, I think he would oppose this with force.

Mr. Speaker, Bob Stafford knew that a higher education was the clearest path to the middle class in this country--and he was a good Republican. We should not let the interest rates double. There is no justification for having these interest rates go from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. We have 30 days to act.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, this amendment, offered by my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Gardner) and I, does something straightforward. It forces, really encourages, the VA to do something that it has been required to do, and that's report on energy efficiency.

One of the goals I think all of us have, regardless of our point of view about what is the best fuel source, is to do everything we can to make sure that we use less, not more. One of the best places for us to save on energy is in our Federal buildings. Anything we can do to encourage them, to do the inventory, so that they know what steps can be taken to use less energy means we are going to save taxpayers money and help their bottom line budget.

In previous legislation this Congress authorized, actually directed, that our agencies make these reports available. That's a step that would then allow them to participate in energy saving contracts with some of our energy saving companies. This legislation basically says let's get that job done.

I yield to my colleague from Colorado (Mr. Gardner).

I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman.

It is a failure when Congress will not allow debate on the most important issue in this bill, and that is the policy in Afghanistan.

Congress has been failing the American people. We haven't paid for that war. We haven't even debated how to pay for that war. It's been on the credit card for 10 years--over a trillion dollars. And by refusing to allow us to debate the McGovern amendment, which is about the policy, we now won't even debate the policy. So we don't pay for it and we don't even debate the wisdom of the policy. That's a grave mistake.

The reality is the war in Afghanistan is over. It's time for Congress to end it. The President has set a date: 2014. What's magic about that?

The Afghans have to step up and assume responsibility for their future, and we have to have a debate as to whether or not we should bring those troops home sooner than 2014. We owe it to the American taxpayer; we owe it to the American men and women who are serving, and we owe it to our own responsibility to debate the important public issues of our time.

In 45 days, the interest rates on some Stafford student loans are going to double. Even though we have a consensus in Congress that low interest rates should be extended, we can't get the job done. Families can't wait. They're sitting around, trying to figure out how they'll put their kids through college.

Take Beth from Westfield, Vermont. She told her children when they were young that college was part of their futures and important if they were going to make it into the middle class. Now she fears she may have steered them wrong. Her family currently holds $150,000 in debt. In a tough job market, Beth's kids are struggling to get a foothold in life with loan repayment costs exceeding $500 a month. Beth would like to help, but she is not really in a strong position to do so. She went back to college later in life, hoping to advance her career, and now she is way down, as are her kids, with this enormous burden.

Mr. Speaker, Congress has 45 days. Congress needs to act. We can't afford to price the middle class out of a college education.

Thank you.

You've been a leader on this; but the challenge that we face in Congress is whether we're going to take seriously the epidemic of violence that's inflicted on women throughout this country. This legislation has to address what is a very serious problem in this country, which is that women are being subjected to violent attacks and that do we have it in our heart--do we have it in our will?--to provide legal protections to women who are the victims of assaultive and violent conduct in this country? It's really that simple.

That should apply to all women. Any person who is attacked on the basis of gender should be protected. What their views are about anything--what their views are on politics, what their views are on sexual orientation--are really irrelevant to the basic, independent, individual right that all of us have--men and women, incidentally-- which is to live our lives in peace and with protection and with the confidence that our physical integrity will not be violated. It's really as simple as that.

So this is a question of whether this country has it in its heart to understand that there is violence out there that is affecting half of our population. Do we as a society have the desire and have the will to provide legal protection to people who are on the receiving end of violent conduct?

In my view, we have that in our heart, we have it in our soul, we have it in our will, and we can do it.

What about the kids? Whether they're lesbian or immigrants who take care of the children, isn't it the mothers who have the burden of that at the end of the day? Aren't we doing something that's going to protect those kids as well?

You make a good point.

Is it the case in this country that it's Republican women or Democratic women or Republican children or Democratic children who are on the bad end of violence? We know that's not the case. There is a lot of human emotion that goes into this, and it's uncontrolled emotion. We know that whether you are a Republican or a Democrat child or woman that you're entitled to the physical integrity of your own safety.

So it's not an issue that should be decided on partisan grounds. It should be decided on the basic right of human beings to physical security, and it should be about the goal all of us, I believe, have-- that we want to have respectful and loving relationships, particularly in our intimate relationships.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, this bill seeks to achieve a very worthy goal: reduce the debt of the United States and establish a sustainable level of spending. I share that goal, but I oppose this bill for two reasons:

First, the proponents of this bill know--or they certainly should know--that there is absolutely no chance this bill will be passed by the Senate or signed by the President. That turns this into a political manifesto, not a practical proposal.

Second, and most importantly, the design of this bill guarantees that it will fail. Our budget is a three-pronged stool: domestic spending, Pentagon spending, and revenues. And if you want a strong and durable stool, you need three strong legs. This budget cuts two away. It takes revenues off the table completely, and it exempts the Pentagon, with its nearly $700 billion budget, from making any contribution to debt reduction.

Mr. Speaker, our debt problem is serious but solvable. There were 100 of us in this House--60 Democrats and 40 Republicans--who wrote to the supercommittee, and we said the obvious: Put everything on the table. By doing so, we can succeed.

Mr. Speaker, right now, families across this country are sitting around their kitchen tables trying to figure out how they can send their kids to college. They're talking about how to finance a college education when the cost of that is rising faster than the cost of health care.

Parents are making some very difficult decisions. Should we refinance our homes and dwindle our retirement? How much money can we borrow? How much can we ask our kids to borrow in order to put this financial package together? And for the first time, many of these parents are considering the unthinkable: maybe they can't afford to send their kids to college.

Meanwhile, in 52 days, if Congress does not act, a very bad situation will get worse. On July 1, the interest rates on the Stafford student loans will double from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. Vermont students, American students and parents need action from Congress and need it now.

Over the past few weeks, I've been asking Vermonters to share their real-world stories, and I'd like to tell a few.

Katie from West Glover graduated with $36,000 in student loan debt. And it's a tough economy. She's had a hard time finding a job, so she took an internship so she can keep advancing her career. She works 5 to 6 days a week making 25 bucks a day. She's essentially providing well- educated, cheap labor, but she doesn't have a choice. She doesn't regret her decision to go to school, but she's getting extremely apprehensive about her ability to get this financial albatross off her back.

Sue from Newport has $125,000 in debt. She also has some medical problems which limit the kind of work that she can do, but she does work and has a full-time job. But student loan payments are $600 a month, making it very difficult for her to pay her other bills, and she has no savings and no retirement.

Peter, a parent from Calais, Vermont, he always believed that he could send his son to college. Now he's not sure that he can. His son has done his part, graduating from high school with honors, and he's been accepted to a number of very good institutions. But with tuition costs at those schools ranging from $30,000 to $56,000 a year, Peter from Calais is just not sure that their family is going to be able to make this work out.

Julie from Huntington, Vermont. She grew up in a single-parent home, living below the poverty line, but she was told that if she worked hard in school, studied, she could achieve a great future. She did her part. She also was taught, by the way, that she should avoid debt at all costs. She is pursuing college but working three jobs while she's going to school full-time. And she's still piling up debt. She was taught to believe that if she worked hard and applied herself she could achieve great things. Now working three jobs, piling up debt, ``Is there a way out?'' is the question she's asking.

Mr. Speaker, this is more than about extending the low interest on the Stafford loans. It's really about whether we're going to have a pathway for people trying to climb into the middle class to get there and for people in the middle class to stay there. How much more burden can we impose on folks who want a future for their families, for their kids? It is absolutely unconscionable, in this world that we're in, to double student interest rates from 3.4 to 6.8 percent.

It is time for Congress to stand up for the middle class, for those folks from Vermont and around the country who are trying to do the best for themselves and for their country.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, last week, the Republican majority was adamantly opposed to this legislation. This week, we're rushing it through on the floor today. You know what? That's a good thing. We're on the same page. The majority and the minority want to preserve student loan interest rates at 3.4 percent, not let them double to 6.8 percent.

So if that is the case, why are we selecting mutually unacceptable ways to pay for this? It's as though we're resorting to the trick bags: you raid the health fund that's so important to us; we present the oil company provision that is so unacceptable to you.

What we should do is find a way to put some limits, some incentives to keep tuition increases at or below the rate of inflation. They were up, 8.4 percent. If we work together, that would be a double win for students and parents. We could keep those interest rates low, and we could start bringing down the escalation in tuition increases that are unacceptable.

I thank the gentleman.

Unfortunately, this is another example of Congress failing the American people. It's failing our States. It's failing our communities.

First of all, how in the world can we expect transportation projects to be done on a short-term basis--90-day extensions? 4-month extensions? That just isn't possible to get from planning, to execution, to construction. It won't happen. Number two, how can we have a transportation bill where we don't fund mass transit? alternative transportation? That makes no sense whatsoever.

What has happened here is that the need to have a transportation bill for this whole country has been hijacked for political purposes. The Keystone pipeline is an example. Take whatever position you want on Keystone, but will the implementation of Keystone bring down gas prices, as is asserted? Will allowing drilling everywhere that the ``drill, baby, drill'' folks want to drill even lower gas prices?

A study of the Energy Information Administration said if we opened up all of the coastal waters--off Florida, off the east coast, off the west coast--and if we drilled on all of the public lands, that might add over time, which is about 10 years, 1 million barrels a day to the supply. That's in a world demand of 100 million barrels a day.

So the question is: What impact is that going to have on price? The best estimate they came up with was about 3 cents per gallon. That suggests when there is so much effort and so much political rhetoric about something that is so profoundly ineffective in giving relief at the pump to folks who need it, that it has a political agenda. Let's, instead, do things that would make a difference at the pump.

One, let's fully fund the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Turn that into what it has historically been, which is a safeguard for consumers and a safeguard for businesses that need stable pricing in the commodities market. Instead, we are allowing it to become a casino for Wall Street speculation, which is probably adding about $20 on the price of a $100-barrel of oil, or 50 cents on a gallon of gas when you go to fill up. That doesn't need to be. Squeeze out the Wall Street speculation, and give a break to our consumers and businesses.

Two, allow the President in fighting this speculation to deploy the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, 800 million barrels of oil owned by the taxpayers. When that has been deployed by Presidents--two Republicans, two Democrats--it has been a shot across the bow to the speculators, and it has brought down prices by 8 percent to 33 percent.

Three, let's commit ourselves to using American oil that is produced on American soil to be used in America. So, if there is going to be Keystone oil that is flowing through our States, why do we just want that to go to the export market when it will provide no benefit whatsoever to the American consumer?

Let's do the things we can to bring down the price. Let's tap the SPR. Let's strengthen the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and let's use American oil on American soil.

Mr. Speaker, in 74 days, this Congress may well hang a financial albatross around the necks of students and families across this country. That's because, on July 1, student interest rates are scheduled to go from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, literally doubling the interest costs that our kids and their parents are going to have to pay on their education.

We have got to find a way, Republicans and Democrats, to work together and avoid this punishing interest rate increase on our students. This is not about Republicans or Democrats. It's not about red States or blue States. It's not about the 2012 elections. It's about the kids that we all represent. It's about the parents that we all represent.

In my case in the State of Vermont, it's about students like Michael McGurk, who is a freshman at the University of Vermont, and he literally doesn't know whether he's going to be able to go on in college if the interest rates double. It's about parents like Ben Truman and Jennifer Wallace Brodeur, who last month were sitting around the table with their son who was about to go to college and are trying to put the pieces together to be able to afford it.

What this is also about is ground zero for the middle class. This country faces a very fundamental question: Are we a country, are we a Congress that is going to remain committed to expanding and broadening the middle class, making it possible for low-income folks to climb their way into the middle class, making it possible for folks in the middle class to stay there? In order to do that, we have to invest in the future, and that means making it possible, making it affordable, for our kids to get the education they need to get that start.

Student debt in this country is at a crisis point. At $900 billion, student debt outpaces that of credit cards, outpaces that of auto loans, and there is no end in sight. In Vermont--and again, this has nothing to do with what their political affiliation is--nearly 70 percent of our college students graduate with a debt of about $30,000. That's real money. That's more than many of those students will make in their first years out of college. It's a tough job market, and entry level jobs don't pay a lot. Students are totally at the mercy of a system that is out of

control. The average tuitions at 4-year public universities rose by over 8 percent last year, so costs are going up even as student aid is going down.

A recent poll found that 75 percent of Americans viewed college as unaffordable. That can't be something that we allow to continue. People need to have confidence that that ticket to the middle class is there and that it's affordable. That's why we, together, have to find a way to avoid this doubling of interest rates. For over 8 million students in this country, Stafford loans are a very critical resource, helping them afford the cost of that college education we all want them to get.

With the Federal Government now borrowing money at close to 2 percent, why are we asking middle class families to pay 6.8 percent? These are not grants. These are loans. They'll be repaid. Let's find a way to help our kids and to help our parents.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 134, 135, 136; had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on all.

Mr. Chairman, the budget challenge we face requires two things: first, it requires the confidence to invest in the future and rebuild the middle class; second, it requires the discipline to bring down our debt with a plan that recognizes what is obvious to all Americans, that any plan with any prospect of success must include spending cuts and revenues.

This budget, instead, makes things worse and delivers a body blow to the middle class. It doubles down on tax cuts, adding $150,000 in cuts to the wealthiest Americans. It increases Pentagon spending, fencing it off from it being required to make any contribution to reducing our debt. And that body blow to the middle class, it's delivered by cutting Pell Grants, kicking kids off of work study, by taking away things that the middle class needs, a functional Food and Drug Administration, FAA, cuts in national science. It is really bad for the middle class.

Americans know that a budget is much more than line items on a spreadsheet. It's about who we are and what we aspire to be. And the question is this:

This budget believes in austerity. It leads to prosperity; no evidence for that. This budget believes that tax cuts for the wealthy will create jobs; no evidence for that.

In our budget, we believe something very simple:

We're all better off when we're all better off, and that requires a budget that reflects what has always made America great: investment in a middle class that's strong and that's enduring. Our hope in passing any budget has to be that the middle class will be strengthened and that parents will have some confidence that their kids will be better off than they were.

This is a bad bill. H.R. 3309 would create a special set of very vague and unique procedural hurdles for the FCC that apply to no other Agency. It will result in decades of litigation.

We have to have simplicity, and we have to have clarity. This legislation will open up the floodgates of confusion.

It significantly reduces the FCC's ability to take the public into account, and that is the fundamental interest that should be on the minds of this Congress.

It provides endless routes for potentially misguided litigation making every single one of the FCC's regulatory analyses in support of a new rule, not just the rule itself, subject to judicial review. There's going to be regulation or not regulation. This legislation means there's endless litigation.

These requirements would also amend the Communications Act to mandate how the Agency should operate internally, with detailed requirements for the most basic regulatory actions such as specific timelines associated with notice-and-comment rulemaking procedures. This is Congress micromanaging.

Mr. Chairman, I urge the Congress to defeat this legislation.

I thank the gentleman.

In Vermont, we faced the challenge that we face in this Nation: We want to have access to health care, and we want it to be affordable.

When we had legislation, the Democrats were pushing access. The Republican Governor was concerned about cost. We sat down and realized we're both right. If Democrats want to achieve the goal of access to health care for everybody, we have to control cost. Our Republican Governor was right. We worked to do that. This Congress has failed to do that.

Health care costs are rising beyond our ability to pay. Whether it's the taxpayer, whether it's the business that's paying the premiums, whether it's an individual who is self-pay, you cannot have health care costs rising at 6.5 percent a year, as they have for the past 10 years, higher than the rate of inflation, profits, or the economic growth. It can't be sustained. IPAB is a tool to help us control health care costs. We have to do that for our taxpayers, for our employers and for our citizens.

It's advisory. These 15 people who have experience in economics and in medicine will look at data, will look at information. What's there to fear in their doing that? They'll make recommendations to Congress. Congress will retain the right to have the final say as to whether these recommendations will work or not or if we want to substitute something else. That makes sense.

The alternative is what has been put forward to essentially shift the burden of rising health care costs onto seniors and citizens by turning Medicare into a voucher. It would cap what the taxpayer would pay by exempting this Congress from making reforms in how we deliver care that could result in costs coming down and simply saying to seniors on Medicare that if costs go up 6.5 percent a year, another 6.5 percent-- you know what, folks?--you are on your own. Figure out how to pay for it. Congress is AWOL on this.

So to the extent that we claim we want access but we won't control costs and take steps that are required to make health care spending sustainable, we're shirking our responsibility. IPAB is not the answer, but it's a good tool.

To reject it and instead replace it with a voucher system where the full burden of runaway health care costs are simply imposed on seniors is the wrong way to go in a continuation of Congress ducking its responsibility for the reforms in the health care system that our citizens need and deserve.

Madam Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition, even though I'm not opposed, and I'd like to speak generally on H.R. 3606.

First of all, it's very refreshing that we have legislation that's focused on improving the business climate that we're doing together, and we've had some internal squabbles about whose name should go first. I'm not sure it amuses the American people. But the bottom line here that should encourage the American people is that we have bipartisan legislation that is going to do positive things for the business climate, certainly in Vermont and around the country.

I want to thank my colleagues, Mr. Fincher, Mr. Himes, Mr. Carney, and Mr. Schweikert, for working together so well to bring this legislation to the floor. And there are a number of good things here.

We don't have to exaggerate this as the answer to the real challenge we have in creating jobs. But you know what? Just selling this for what it is is a good thing, and it's a good thing because it does practical things to help us improve our business climate, particularly for small businesses, and for the rare time that we have this opportunity, we're doing it together.

But the legislation, overall, does a number of good things. The IPO on-ramp that is going to allow companies that need access to capital fewer barriers to get access to capital, particularly our small companies, where the cost of putting together an initial public offering is very significant, oftentimes prohibitive, that's a very good thing.

The Access to Capital for Job Creators Act that removes the regulatory ban that prevents small, privately held companies from using advertisements to solicit investors for private offerings, so they are allowed to let the word go out that they are open for business and they want investors, that's a good thing.

The Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act permits crowdfunding to finance new businesses by allowing companies to accept and pool donations up to $1 million. Again, a very practical step to take. Good step to take.

The Small Companies Capital Formation Act that Mr. Schweikert, my colleague from Arizona, pioneered raises the offering threshold for companies exempted from registration with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from $5 million, the threshold, to $50 million.

Mr. Schweikert, again, you've been busy. The Private Company Flexibility and Growth Act raises the threshold for mandatory SEC registration for companies from 500 to 1,000 shareholders. We've got a company in Newport, Vermont, that has been under a lot of regulatory pressure. They can't go over that 500 threshold. This is going to be very helpful, Madam Chairman, to that company to get access to capital, and it's going to make certain that the SEC regulations are still complied with.

Then the provision that raises the threshold for mandatory SEC registration for community banks from 500 to 1,000 shareholders, that's going to have a direct impact on a bank in Newport, Vermont.

So these are all practical steps. I don't think we need to oversell it. It's not the step that is going to get us down to an unemployment rate of 1 or 2 or 3 percent that all of us aspire to, and there's a tendency in this body sometimes to oversell what we're doing. But you know what? We shouldn't minimize what we're doing as well. And these, again, practical, sensible small business-oriented steps that are taken on a bipartisan basis. This is a good thing that we're doing.

I yield back the balance of my time.