Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011: House of Representatives

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I would say to the previous speaker, my friend Mr. Pence, we did that. In 1993 we looked the fiscal posture of our country in the eye. We had sustained $1.4 trillion of deficit spending under Mr. Reagan and $1.1 trillion of deficit spending under Mr. Bush, and we put legislation on this floor and said we need to meet our fiscal responsibilities. Not a single member, unfortunately, of the Republican Party voted for that legislation. But over the next 8 years, we had a net surplus in this country; the only time in the lifetime of anybody in this body that that has happened. We did it working together.

Unfortunately, the last administration ran up $3.8 trillion of deficit, and we inherited an economy that was in substantial free fall. The President said that; Mr. Bernanke said that; Mr. Paulson said that. And so we adopted legislation that tried to stabilize that economy, and the good news is that we have. We haven't gotten to where we want to be. We want to create more jobs. As the President says, we want to invest in growing our economy and bringing jobs back.

There will be some very tough decisions we will have to make moving forward; and, frankly, as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee knows and as the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee knows, you will not get there focused simply on 14 percent of the budget. It will not happen, my friends.

You might want to delude yourself or delude our constituents and say that you can simply cut all 14 percent of non-defense discretionary spending, and you will still have an operating deficit this year if we cut out every nickel of discretionary spending.

That discretionary spending of course educates our children. It promotes our health. It promotes our commerce. It promotes building the economy. That's what this issue is about.

The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. DICKS. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. HOYER. So I rise to say to all of us, all 435 of us, it will take courage, cooperation, and common sense to address the deficit situation that confronts us.

And it is a crisis. It must be met. We do not have an alternative. Because if we do not address it--all of you have heard about my three children, my three grandchildren, and my one great granddaughter. All of them will hold me and all of you responsible for the legacy of fiscal irresponsibility which we will leave them.

We now have bipartisan responsibility. You are in charge of this House; the Democrats are in charge of the Senate, and we have a President who is a Democrat. It is a perfect opportunity for us all to take responsibility and, yes, part of the blame, because the decisions we will have to make will be tough; they will be agonizing, and they will be wrenching. And people will say, We're not sure you should have done it.

If we do it together, we can do it. And we owe it to our country, our fellow citizens, and our children to do so.

Cutting spending is part of the solution to our deficit. But we also have to cut wisely, making the distinction between spending we can do without, and investments that are vital to our future growth.

But Republicans have brought to the floor a spending bill full of cuts that are short-sighted and indiscriminate. They endanger the investments we need to grow our economy and create jobs--to out-build, out-innovate, and out-educate our competitors. When we talk about cutting those investments, we are talking about cutting tomorrow's jobs.

I wish that my Republican colleagues would listen to the business leaders who understand the importance of thoughtful investment.

Listen to Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, who don't agree on very much: ``Whether it is building roads, bridges, high-speed broadband, energy systems and schools, these projects not only create jobs ..... they are an investment in building the modern infrastructure our country needs to compete.''

But the Republican spending bill would cancel 76 transportation projects in 40 States, and leave us with roads, bridges, and an air traffic control system stuck in the last century.

Listen to Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com: ``The number 1 thing the government needs to do is increase research funding.''

But the Republican spending bill would cut support for 20,000 researchers at the National Science Foundation, cut $1.4 billion of energy research, and cut $2.5 billion of medical research.

Listen to Bill Gates: ``If we don't start innovating in education to make it better and more accessible ..... our competitiveness will fall behind that of other countries.''

But the Republican spending bill would kick 200,000 children out of Head Start and make it harder for Americans to afford college.

By all means, let's take real action on the deficit--but not in a way that sacrifices America's competitive edge.

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