Providing for Consideration of H.r. 1, Full-year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, and Waiving Requirement of Clause 6(A) of Rule Xiii with Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in very strong opposition to this rule and to the underlying continuing resolution.

The spending bill that the Republican leadership is bringing before the House today is reckless, thoughtless, and heartless; and, most disturbingly, it's a jobs killer. I believe that the best way to reduce our deficit and long-term debt is to grow our economy, to help businesses create jobs.

At a time when our economy is emerging from the worst recession in our lifetimes, when millions of Americans are out of work and millions more are struggling to make ends meet, this continuing resolution takes exactly the wrong approach.

Instead of making needed investments in education, medical research, infrastructure, and other priorities, this bill takes a meat axe to them. Instead of strengthening the middle class on Main Street, this bill gives sweetheart deals for Wall Street. Instead of investing in our workers, it protects special interest subsidies for big oil companies and hedge fund managers.

A few weeks ago on this floor, Republicans told us that veterans programs, education, child nutrition, and health care research would be protected. It is clear now that those were empty promises, Mr. Speaker.

For veterans, the bill eliminates a program that offers housing vouchers for homeless veterans. In education, the bill decimates the Pell Grant program by reducing the maximum award by $800 and by cutting another $4.9 billion from other education programs. For child nutrition, the bill cuts $750 million from the Women, Infants, and Children's program. And the bill slashes $2.5 billion from the National Institutes of Health, jeopardizing important research into diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's and diabetes. It destroys the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a commonsense program to preserve and protect our natural resources and outdoor recreational space, helping local economies grow.

Mr. Speaker, when we brought up the prospect of these cuts a few weeks ago, we were accused of demonizing the debate. Now that we have seen the numbers before us, I am sad to say it is worse than any of us could have predicted.

I find the cuts in education funding to be particularly troublesome. As President Obama made clear in his State of the Union, we must invest in our children if we are to compete in the 21st century economy. In order to maintain our economic standing, in order to create the jobs of the future, in order to compete against China, we must have a well-educated workforce. So why on Earth would we slash Pell Grants, which help millions of families, 12,000 in my district alone, pay for college? We shouldn't.

This bill will also decimate important lifesaving food aid programs to feed hungry children and refugees. It would literally take the food out of the mouths of some of the most vulnerable people around the world. Mr. Speaker, retreating from the global war against extreme poverty and hunger will undermine not just our moral authority but our national security as well.

I also want to point out that this bill continues the same misguided policy under Republican and Democratic Presidents alike that borrows hundreds of billions of dollars to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we are truly serious about reducing the deficit, then those wars need to be ended or paid for. Along with my colleagues like Walter Jones and others, I'm going to continue to talk about this issue. These wars are bankrupting us, and we need to have a meaningful, thorough debate about them.

So again, Mr. Speaker, I believe this continuing resolution contains exactly the wrong prescription for our Nation. We should be focusing on creating jobs and growing our economy. Instead, this Republican bill would lead to more unemployment, more unfairness, and more hardship with the American people.

I urge my colleagues to reject this rule and reject this underlying bill.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, my friends on the other side of the aisle talk about the need to be fiscally responsible. I tried last night to offer an amendment in the Rules Committee that would simply say that we should pay for the war in Afghanistan, that we should not continue to borrow the money. Last year, we borrowed $450 billion. That went onto the credit card. And that means our kids and grandkids will have to bear that burden. That amendment was not made in order. I couldn't offer that amendment.

We talked last night about the giveaways to big oil companies and the need to get at those subsidies. The way the bill is written, we can't do it. We can't do it. So it's not so open.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I will yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, Democrats very much want to eliminate wasteful spending. We are committed to making the tough choices to get this budget more balanced, to get our deficit reduced, and start paying down the debt. That's not the issue. The issue is where do you make those cuts.

My friends on the other side of the aisle talked about shared sacrifice. Well, the only people that seem to be sacrificing under their approach are middle-income families and the poorest of the poor in our country. A few weeks ago, at their insistence, millionaires and billionaires got an extension of the Bush tax cuts at a cost of billions of dollars in terms of more borrowed money added on to our deficit. So the Donald Trumps of the world are not sacrificing.

Big Oil is not sacrificing. Just to put it into perspective that BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell made a combined profit of over $1 trillion during this past decade, and yet taxpayers are subsidizing Big Oil companies. Why? And for all the talk about how open this rule is, we can't come up with an amendment that is germane or that will be made in order to go after the subsidies because they are protected.

I mentioned, earlier, the war. We borrowed $450 billion last year. Our soldiers are sacrificing, their families are sacrificing, and we're not paying for the war. We're just putting it on our credit card. That is unconscionable, and yet an amendment is not eligible to be brought up to insist that we pay for this war.

So where do they cut? Education, more than 200,000 kids kicked out of Head Start and thousands of teachers would lose their jobs. An $800 reduction per student in the maximum Pell Grant award. Innovation, 20,000 fewer researchers supported at the National Science Foundation trying to find a cure to cancer; a $1.4 billion reduction in science and energy research to spur a clean energy economy of the future; $2.5 billion in cuts to the National Institutes of Health, again, trying to find cures for diseases like cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's. If we found a cure for Alzheimer's, we would never have another problem with Medicaid again. Yet you are cutting back on those important investments. High-speed rail being cut back. A loss of 25,000 construction jobs if your bill becomes law. You're cutting cops and firefighters, and yet we're protecting the very wealthy in this country. We're protecting subsidies to major oil and gas companies. It is just wrong, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that I can offer an amendment to the rule to provide that, immediately after the House adopts this is rule, it will bring up H.R. 11, the Build America Bonds to Create Jobs Now Act.

Unlike the irresponsible bill the Republicans want to bring up, which will cut jobs, threaten American innovation, and slash initiatives that create economic growth, this bill will spur job creation here at home by extending through 2012 the successful Build America Bonds to help State and local governments finance the rebuilding of American schools and hospitals, water systems and transit projects at significantly lower costs.

It has been calculated that every $1 billion in Federal funds invested in infrastructure creates or sustains approximately 35,000 jobs and $6.2 billion in economic activity.

Build America Bonds are broadly supported by American business, the construction industry, and President Obama, as well as State and local governments. And at a time of fiscal restraint, they're a good deal for the American taxpayer, wisely using small public investments to leverage significant private funds to rebuild America and create jobs.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the amendment in the Record along with extraneous materials immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts?

There was no objection.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question so that we can debate and pass real jobs legislation. The American people want us to talk about jobs and how to create jobs and protect jobs. This will do it.

So I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and a ``no'' vote on the rule.

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