Providing for Consideration of H.R. 910, Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this rule and to the underlying legislation which is an assault on science and reason. Indeed, it is an assault on the very air we breathe. My Republican friends continue to bury their heads in the sand.

Last night in the Rules Committee, along with my colleagues Earl Blumenauer and Peter Welch, I offered an amendment to end taxpayer subsidies to Big Oil, something the Republican leadership has refused to do. These subsidies have helped BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell make a combined profit of nearly $1 trillion over the past decade. That is trillion with a ``t.'' Give me a break.

Our amendment would have raised $40 billion that would have gone straight toward deficit reduction. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, our amendment was defeated on a party-line vote. That shows exactly where the Republican priorities are, Madam Speaker, a radical redistribution of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the wealthiest people and corporations in the country.

Yesterday, our Republican friends unveiled their budget proposal. That budget takes extreme, right-wing trickle-down economics to new levels. They want to destroy Medicare as we know it and impose a huge tax increase on middle class seniors through higher health care costs. They want to eviscerate Medicaid by turning it into a block grant program. They want to cut food stamps, education, infrastructure, environmental protection, and medical research, programs which actually create jobs and improve the lives of American working families.

And at the same time, my Republican friends want to provide massive tax cuts to the very wealthiest Americans and corporations, including Big Oil companies that are reaping billions and billions and billions of dollars in profits each year. The Republican Party wants to increase health care costs for seniors in order to pay for their tax breaks for the rich. Those are wrong priorities, Madam Speaker.

As Harold Meyerson wrote today in the Washington Post, ``If it does nothing else, the budget that House Republicans unveiled Tuesday provides the first real Republican program for the 21st century, and it is this: Repeal the 20th century.''

For the life of me, I can't understand why the people who caused the recession be allowed to keep everything while innocent workers get the bill.

We all want to reduce the deficit, Madam Speaker. How about ending our occupation in Afghanistan? How about ending subsidies for multinational oil companies and agribusiness? How about asking hedge fund managers to pay a fair tax rate?

The Republican leadership has made it clear that they are willing to shut the government down in order to achieve their right-wing, radical agenda. And if that happens, Madam Speaker--and I hope it doesn't, and I pray it doesn't--the American people need to know that the responsibility lies at the feet of the Republican Members of this House.

Again, I urge my colleagues to reject this--again, another restrictive rule--and reject the underlying legislation.

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