Providing For Consideration Of H.R. 4715, Clean Estuaries Act Of 2010, Waiving Requirement Of Clause 6(a) Of Rule XIII With Respect To Consideration Of Certain Resolutions, And Providing For Consideration Of Motions To Suspend The Rules
Floor Speech
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. I yield myself such time as I may consume.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
I appreciate the thoughts from my good friend from North Carolina, but I have to disagree with her.
First, I want to remind her that we are here today to debate and talk about the rule for the National Estuary Program, and as someone from North Carolina who also represents a lot of coastal communities, I am sure that your fishermen and your tourism industry depend just as much on clean water and healthy estuaries as we do in the State of Maine. And I don't want to underestimate the importance to jobs, to job growth and to a healthy economy that the estuary program has in a coastal State.
I also want to say that this merely increases the authorization for the funding. This isn't spending the money today, and decisions can be made down the line. But important decisions do need to be made to protect more estuaries in our country to make sure that these vibrant areas that produce much of our fishing stock and are critical to our tourism industry continue to thrive and are vibrant.
Estuary counties only make up 13 percent of the Nation's land area but account for 49 percent of the GDP and support 28 million jobs. So if you want to talk about jobs and you're from a coastal State and you're going to neglect taking care of our estuaries, I think you need to go home and talk to the people of those coastal districts, commercial fishermen, people who depend on the tourism industry and know what a critical bill we're talking about today.
But if you want to sidetrack the debate and you want to get into a debate about the deficit, I want to remind you that when my party left office, we had a surplus and we were comfortably moving ahead with the economy. But for 8 years, we had a tremendous amount of unpaid bills in this country. The majority of our deficit came from two wars that weren't paid for, of which we have people who disagree with our involvement in these wars today; tax cuts for some of the wealthiest people in this country who didn't need those tax cuts, but those tax cuts were not funded; a prescription drug program that was not paid for. And, in fact, when the Republicans passed that bill, they didn't even require that we negotiated with the pharmaceutical industry.
In fact, we pay the highest prices in the world, and you wonder why our economy and our deficit is in bad shape? I think you have to look at the last party in power when you are looking at where to place the blame.
Look, people in my State are hurting. We have a tough economy. We have lost a lot of our manufacturing industry to jobs overseas, to a tremendous change in that economy, and I don't want to say for one minute that the people in my State are comfortable with the job situation. They are hurting, and they want more help.
But, unlike the Republicans, the Democrats put forward the Recovery Act. Much of that money has come to my State and yours. And while we are not there yet, it's had an effect. It's helped us rebuild some of our roads and bridges. It helped keep teachers and firefighters and policemen in their jobs. It has funded research and development. It's gone to a whole host of necessary clean water infrastructure development. The list is long of how that money has been invested in our State.
We have $35 million to extend our train service, which is very important. Extending Amtrak in the Northeast has been a great boon and will be very helpful to our economy.
To say that the Democrats aren't, one, paying attention to the deficit and, two, doing all they can to assist in the job creation in this country is to neglect exactly what those facts are. I, again, will not say that we are where we want to be in this economy, but, last month, the U.S. economy gained more jobs than any other month over the last 3 years, an increase in 162,000 jobs. That is a sign that the labor market is at least moving in the right direction to stabilize.
Let's remember, though, when President Obama took over when I was first elected as a freshmen, the economy was losing 700,000 jobs a month; and the previous President had already had to go in and bail out the banks because of the lack of oversight of our financial services industry. So we took over an economy in very tough shape, and at least it is moving in the right direction.
There are other numbers that, while they don't give us all that we need, they are a positive sign. In the last month, the manufacturing industry added 17,000 jobs, retailers have added 15,000 jobs, and leisure and hospitality accounted for another 22,000 jobs. We are moving in the right direction.
When I go home to my district, I ask the people who work in the tourism industry--tourism is now the largest industry in our State, and I am sure it is a big industry in North Carolina. I ask them how they are doing; and they say, well, we are getting some positive signs. We have more bookings, more people are coming in this spring. People are feeling a little bit more comfortable about the economy. And while that's not where we need to be, at least we have people moving in the right direction.
We also have gained the confidence of people who say, thank goodness you passed some health care reform, health care reform that will cut the deficit in the long run, stabilize Medicare. And I can tell you from my small businesses what I hear more than anything else is from people who say how am I going to cover my employees, how am I going to cover myself as an individual? And I can now go back home to my State and say, if you have 25 employees or less, you will get a 35 percent tax credit this year. You are going to get real assistance in providing your employees with health care. And we are doing it with also cutting the deficit and cutting the instability in the Medicare system.
I just want to say that, A, we are here to talk about estuaries, which, in my opinion and from my coastal State, is a very important job creator and revenue enhancer and critical to our fishing industry, which is very important in our State. I think you have to look at where you are laying the blame when you talk about this tough economy. Nobody likes the situation we are in, but nobody is working harder to change it than the Democrats.
I reserve the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
We can go back and forth all day about he said, she said, who has lowered taxes more, who has cut the deficit, who has done what, but let's just recall when the Republicans were in office. They cut taxes for the wealthiest people in this country, which contributed considerably to the deficit. And while the Republicans did not vote for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, one-third of that and more is our tax cuts for the middle class. So if one of my colleagues was on the floor saying that this was the largest tax cut ever enacted, it may or may not have been, but I think it was the largest tax cut for the middle class and the group of working people in our country who need it more than anybody.
I just want to read a quote here from Bruce Bartlett, the domestic policy adviser under President Reagan and Treasury Department economist under President George H.W. Bush. He said on 3/19/2010: ``Federal taxes are considerably lower by every measure since Obama became President.'' According to the JCT, last year's $787 billion stimulus bill, enacted with no Republican support, reduced Federal taxes by almost $100 billion in
2009 and another $222 billion this year.
Let's just talk a little bit about what's in there because people love to talk about these abstract notions of did you or didn't you lower taxes. Well, here's what's in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, one-third of which was tax cuts. Congress has enacted more than $800 billion in tax cuts with another $285 billion working its way through Congress, and this Recovery Act had 25 different tax cuts for Americans in this country.
The Making Work Pay tax cut provided immediate and sustained tax relief to about 95 percent of all American workers and their families. It's a refundable tax credit up to $400 per worker or $800 per couple filing jointly. That has already been enacted. Over 110 million working families, that's about 95 percent of Americans, now are getting the tax relief they need right now.
The Child Tax Credit: I hear from so many people how difficult it is for working families to be able to afford the cost of childcare. Republicans decided to vote against the childcare tax credit, which cut the taxes of families of more than 16 million children through an expansion of the Child Tax Credit, a very important thing, I think, that we enacted this year.
The Earned Income Tax Credit: expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit, providing tax relief to families with three or more children and increasing the Marriage Penalty Relief. Now, again, that's for working-class families. Those are tax cuts for the wealthiest in this country, which is what the Republicans did during their time, making sure the rich got richer. No, we went for the Earned Income Tax Credit.
The American Opportunity College Tax Credits: how often do we hear from working class families today struggling to provide for tuition for their kids' college? That helps more than 4 million additional students attend college with a new $2,500 tax credit for families, which is partially refundable, already been enacted.
The Alternative Minimum Tax Relief, protecting 26 million middle class families who are being hit by the alternative minimum tax.
And we all know about the First-Time Homebuyers Tax Credit which allowed the first-time homebuyer $8,000, moved it up from $7,500. That has been extended. Now, maybe you don't hear this in your district; but you wouldn't be listening if you didn't hear from real estate agents who talk about how beneficial that has been in moving the stagnant housing market. I hear about it all the time. I hear about it from them to want to make sure that we continue to extend that tax credit that went directly to working families, to those people who needed the benefit, who wanted to invest in a new home, who wanted to have that opportunity. And I know I hear all the time about what a great benefit that has been.
Incentives to buy new cars were in there, to provide a tax deduction for State and local sales taxes and excise taxes paid on the purchase of new cars. We all know we had to do everything we could to get Detroit working again to help American manufacturing.
Now, that is just what individuals benefited from. Let me just talk about a few of the business tax incentives to create jobs. That was $10 billion over 10 years, supported by the Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. That was in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was voted for by the Democrats and opposed by the Republicans. And I'm sorry to see that, because this was an important issue for the Chamber of Commerce, certainly important for our businesses. That included bonus depreciation, helping businesses to quickly recover the costs of new capital investments by extending the increased bonus depreciation for businesses making investments in new plants and equipment in 2009. I don't know about you, but we're anxious to have new capital investments in our plants and equipment, and so I was very proud to stand behind that.
Small business expensing: spurring small business investment by extending small business expensing, doubling the amount that small businesses can immediately write off on their taxes for capital investments and purchases of new equipment. The write-off has helped many of the businesses in all of our districts.
Buying back debt: providing assistance to companies looking to reduce their debt burdens by delaying the tax on businesses that have a discharged indebtedness which will help those companies strengthen their balance sheets so they can invest in job creation.
Small business loss carrybacks, which increase the cash flow for small businesses by providing a 5-year carryback of net operating losses. I know I hear about this frequently and was proud to support it and help those businesses in my district who felt this was essential. Sorry to see that the Republicans didn't want to vote for yet another small business and business tax investment.
We had the small business investments, spurring investments by small businesses by cutting capital gains tax on investors in small business who buy stock in the next 2 years and hold it more than 5 years.
We had a tax credit for jobs, for recently discharged, unemployed veterans and disconnected youth. How often do we hear about those people who served our country, many of whom are unemployed? How important is that to make sure that we give more jobs to recently discharged, unemployed veterans? Those are just a few of the tax measures that were enacted under the Recovery Act.
For a party, the Republicans, who say they want to cut taxes, they seem to only want to do it on the wealthiest people in this country. Or big corporations who ship jobs offshore, I guess it's okay to cut taxes there; but when it comes to the middle class, when it comes to helping people with tuition, when it comes to childcare tax credits, the very difficult price that working moms and working families pay to keep their children in childcare--which we know is a growing expense for young families--giving them a tax credit, that's where I think our tax credits should go.
And what about the renewable energy and energy efficiency tax incentives to spur energy savings and create jobs? I don't know how people feel in your district, but I know in mine they want to end their dependence on foreign oil. They want to invest in making their homes more efficient, and those energy-efficient tax credits have been very helpful in my State. I meet up with people all the time who say, I'm so glad I had the opportunity to invest in winterizing my home. I know it doesn't get as cold in North Carolina, but in Maine we're a cold State. We're about the most dependent State in the country on oil.
So for those of us in Maine, in New England, we actually may have the oldest stock in the Nation as we are 38th in per capita income and as we have the greatest percentage of seniors in this country, so we have a perfect storm. We have a lot of very old people without much income who are living in very old houses. Our State is basically 80 percent dependent on oil. So, when the costs of oil rise, people are left struggling in their homes, unable to pay those bills. Many of them have to decide whether to heat their homes, to buy their prescription drugs, or to put food on their tables. For them, having energy-efficient home tax credits has been great. It has allowed a lot of people to put on new storm windows, to add that layer of insulation in order to tighten up the home, to really find ways to reduce the costs of getting through the winter, and to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
We have the plug-in hybrid tax credit, which spurs the next generation of cars by providing tax credits for people who purchase plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. What more could you ask for in this country but to spur on innovation and new technology and to help out our ailing automobile and manufacturing industries.
There are tax credits for renewable energy, easing the credit crunch for renewable energy. I am in a State that wants to develop our wind power capacity, that wants to have more solar power, and that wants to have tidal energy. These very tax credits are helping our individuals and businesses to do it, and this is just the beginning. Then, as we talked about earlier, we also enacted health insurance reform.
So I think this is the party which is thinking first of the middle class, of small businesses and which is very worried about how people get through Tax Day. This party has done a variety of things to help that along, and I hope that we can find some Republican votes to do more in the future in order to continue to spur on job creation and to cut taxes for our middle class.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Ms. PINGREE of Maine. Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to say that this bill, the bill we started talking about, about estuaries, which is very important for economic development in my State, will also help the NEPs keep their management plans current by requiring them to be periodically reviewed and updated. This will make them more dynamic, more responsive to changing conditions in the estuaries. Updating the plans will include identifying estuary vulnerability, climate change impact, preparing adaptation responses, as well as working to educate the public on estuary health issues.
One such issue that is emerging as an important issue nationally is the role of toxins from plastics like flame retardants like Deca. Deca is found in increasing amounts in many coastal estuaries. While this legislation does not require the NEPs to address toxins like Deca, it does provide them with the opportunity to further consider the impacts and any actions, including education, that the NEP might take.
I am proud of the good work being done in Maine and across the Nation to protect and restore our estuaries. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill. I urge a ``yes'' on the previous question and the rule.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source