Bipartisan Budget

Floor Speech

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Mr. COSTA. Mr. Speaker, this Congress is making a habit, unfortunately, of acting in crisis mode, which is irresponsible and does a disservice to the fate and the trust that the American public has placed in us as their elected representatives, and this has a direct bearing on our economy. The Pope spoke to the need for us to come together and negotiate bipartisan solutions for the many challenges facing the United States and the world.

The first and most pressing issue is to fund government. Thankfully, tomorrow the House is expected to vote on a short-term continuing resolution to do just that. I hope my colleagues will vote in favor of a clean continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. There is no justification to shut down government. Yes, we have our differences. We negotiate that in a budget process.

However, we know that this is a short-term fix and that a real solution to fixing our Nation's very real and very serious budget problems is in producing a long-term budget, and we should do that in December.

Instead of moving from one crisis to another crisis, we must get back to the work of governing responsibly. Responsible governance requires that we come together, work hard, compromise on a bipartisan budget that will not result in poorly thought-out, across-the-board spending cuts, more commonly known as sequestration.

Failing to govern responsibly and compromise will negatively impact industries so vital to America. That includes our agriculture economy, which provides the food that we eat on America's dinner table. It includes manufacturing and service industries that provide goods and services that we trade.

Finally, it will severely impact some programs that support our Nation's future, like health care, education, public safety, and research and development, costing billions of dollars and thousands of jobs.

In addition to negotiating a bipartisan budget agreement, we need to address the impacts of sequestration and the Congress must address the debt ceiling this December without fanfare that could further throw our economy into chaos.

If the United States were to default on its loans or fail to live up to our promises to those of retirement age, it would send our economy in a downward spiral just at the time that we are finally recovering from this Great Recession.

Unfortunately, not all the areas of the United States are feeling the recovery's effects equally. In the San Joaquin Valley that I represent, many of my constituents are still feeling the effects of the recession, in addition to the unnecessary impacts of our failure to invest in infrastructure, our water infrastructure that we terribly need to invest in as well as our transportation infrastructure.

Vital programs, like the Ex-Im Bank, the highway trust fund, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, have either expired or will soon expire. The Export-Import Bank's charter which was created has sustained 1 1/2 million private sector jobs and expired June 30.

By refusing to bring up the reauthorization of the Bank for a vote, American jobs are being threatened and Congress is undermining the ability of American businesses to compete in a global market.

The highway trust fund is set to expire on October 29. Our Nation's roads, bridges, highways, and railroads are out of date and are in dire need of repair. I have never seen a bridge or road that is Republican or Democrat. This is just investing in America.

A long-term transportation bill was last passed by Congress in 2009. Since then, Congress has had 34 short-term patches. That is simply irresponsible. This not only puts American's safety at risk, but completely undermines our ability to create and sustain American jobs by investing in our infrastructure.

Congress must act to work on a bipartisan basis to reauthorize these programs and countless other Federal programs that are set to expire not only this week, but in December, when we address long-term funding for the next fiscal year. Otherwise, there will be another threat to shut down government in December. It is irresponsible.

Last week Pope Francis reminded us of our responsibilities, the better angels in all of us. He said, ``A good political leader is one who, with the interests of all in mind, seizes the moment in a spirit of openness and pragmatism. A good political leader always opts to initiate processes rather than simply possessing spaces.''

Therefore, the question we should be asking: Are we simply possessing spaces or are we trying to find together the common good for the common man, as Pope Francis suggested?

I hope his spiritual guidance will allow us to work together to do what we were sent here to do, which is the people's work. That is what we were sent here to do on behalf of all Americans.

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