Providing for Consideration of H.R. 1473, Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011; Providing for Consideration of H.Con.Res. 35, Correcting the Enrollment of H.R. 1473; and Providing for Consideration of H.Con.Res. 36, Corr
Floor Speech
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Mr. POLIS. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, for all the talk of Republicans' commitment to cutting spending, there are several odd things about this bill before us that would lead one to believe that it's more of a partisan political exercise than a serious attempt to get the Nation's fiscal house in order, which we need and deserve as Americans.
Under this bill, critical services that many Americans rely on to educate our children, to keep our streets safe, to improve public health, to keep our water and air clean would face tens of billions of dollars worth of real and difficult cuts. Times are tough. We know we have to cut spending. Okay. So why does this bill then provide the Pentagon with an additional $5 billion above the previous request at a time when the civilian and uniformed military, including thoughtful policymakers from both parties, believe that we need to reduce spending across the board?
Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen stated that our national debt is our biggest national security threat. He also noted that the past decade's doubling of the budget of the Department of Defense has led to undisciplined spending and waste within the department. Secretary Gates concurs, stating that we can't hold ourselves exempt from the belt-tightening. Yet, despite members of the military and civilians involved with defense saying that they, too, can't be spared, not only have they been spared by the Republican majority, but their budget has been increased by $5 billion.
The recent bipartisan Commission on Fiscal Responsibility, often called the "Simpson-Bowles commission," called for substantial defense reductions over the next 10 years. They recommended cuts that would have led to $60 billion in savings and security spending in the first year and would have kept our Nation safe. In fact, if we were to implement the commission's recommendations around security spending, we would save $100 billion in 2015 alone.
But Republicans didn't go after their favorite areas of Big Government spending. Instead, they went after our efforts to strengthen our schools, to keep our air and water clean and to keep our streets safe; and the rest of their so-called "spending cuts" don't seem to be saving much at all. In fact, yesterday, we had an interesting discussion in the Rules Committee about whether this bill really even saves close to the $38 billion claimed. Apparently, most of the savings are from allocations of money that wouldn't be spent anyway.
An Associated Press story yesterday called this bill "budget tricks," saying that $23 billion of the $38 billion aren't even real savings, that they're counting savings from unspent census money. This is from the AP: leftover Federal construction funding; $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can't even be spent because of restrictions that have already been set by other legislation. Today's Wall Street Journal calls the Republican spending bill "spending cut hokum." Now, the "spending cut hokum" bill identifies that there was $18 billion in real cuts and $20 billion in fake accounting tricks that are not real cuts.
Yesterday in Rules, I actually had the opportunity to ask the chairman of the Appropriations Committee if he could explain that discrepancy between the claimed cuts and the real cuts which those who have dived in have identified, and he demurred on that account. So, in the end, what have the Republicans accomplished?
I'd like to talk about this graphically and sort of show the American people what we're talking about here:
Now, with these charts, I use the Wall Street Journal's figures, which credit the Republicans for more cuts than does the Associated Press, but out of caution, I want to trust the Journal in this case as a well-researched source and use their figures even though they have less than the AP. The Wall Street Journal still says that the majority of the Republican cuts are, in fact, hokum cuts. So here is what we're talking about, Madam Speaker:
This is the deficit. This is the CBO's, the Congressional Budget Office, estimate of the deficit. It is $1.399 trillion. This is what we're talking about here. This is the continuing resolution savings. That's it; not one penny more. Let me sort of take an example of an American family. We'll have to take a few zeros off of this for most Americans to even understand these figures.
Let's say the deficit is $139,000 and not $1.399 trillion. I was a small business man before I came to Congress; so I understand how to balance a budget. I know most American families are trying to balance their family paychecks, to stay in their homes, to make their mortgage payments. It's $139,000 you lose in a year. That's tough. You have to take out a second mortgage and max out your credit cards, and you try to cover that $139,000, okay? Then you know you've got to make some serious changes. What are you going to do? You hem and you haw for a couple of months; you argue with your creditors; you threaten to shut down your business. On the eve of shutting down your business, because you can't afford another loss of $139,000, what do you do? You figure out how to lose $137,000 the next year. Do you know what? That $137,000 is going to put that American family out of business just as surely as that $139,000, but that is the Republican approach to this bill.
Now let me talk about some of the alternatives we have before us.
Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. POLIS. I would be happy to discuss this on the gentleman's own time. I want to go through this excellent chart. If the gentleman wants to come over, he can look at what we have here and what the Democrats have presented.
If we were serious about deficit reduction, Republicans could have supported several amendments offered by Democrats and voted on in the House when we debated H.R. 1. The Democratic amendments alone would have cut spending by nearly $129 billion, more than three times the amount that's even claimed in this bill.
Here are some examples: Congressman Stark and Congresswoman Lee offered one amendment that would have reduced defense spending to its level 3 years ago--we were already in two wars at that time as well--saving $36 billion in the first year alone, and that would have left intact the defense budget of $688 billion, more than enough to meet the security needs of our Nation. Congressman Nadler offered an amendment that would have finally ended our support for the war in Afghanistan, saving $90 billion. Congresswoman Woolsey offered an amendment that would have saved $415 million by ending the V-22 Osprey program.
In fact, just yesterday in Rules, I also proposed an amendment that would have reduced our troop presence in Europe, which would have saved $415 million. Our European allies, Madam Speaker, are some of the richest countries in the world. It's time they paid their fair way. What is the strategic rationale for an ongoing presence in Germany? The Nazis are gone. The Soviets are gone. Even former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has questioned the ongoing presence of our troops in Europe. I also proposed an amendment eliminating the drug czar. The drug czar's office spends $21 million a year; yet drug use has gone up since its inception.
Madam Speaker, we are never going to balance the entire budget just by reducing the funds Congress spends each year as part of the appropriations process--clearly, we all can agree we need to look at revenues and entitlements--and you're not going to make even the slightest dent in the deficit if you exempt defense spending from any cuts.
In this continuing resolution before us, Republicans have exempted more than half of the domestic discretionary spending from any cuts, and it becomes very clear that the Republican plan isn't so much about serious deficit reduction than it is about protecting their favorite Big Government spending while simultaneously slashing away at their favorite targets, like education, the environment and the safety net.
Here is what we could potentially accomplish if we work together: This shows the Republican cuts in this CR. We even add in, for the sake of argument, the hokum cuts. We put them in here too--it's the Wall Street Journal's term, not mine--and we include the proposed Democratic amendments. I think this is something that we could be proud of. Do you know what, Madam Speaker? I think more Democrats would support a program that didn't only cut the program which so many on my side of the aisle feel strongly about but that also makes some of the difficult decisions with where the real money is with regard to defense and security spending.
Yes. Just like that American family that we raised, digging its way out of a $127,000-a-year loss, we need to make a real impact on reducing the Federal budget deficit. This will take action across the aisle to make sure that we can leave our country in a better situation and that we can help the next generation fight its way out from the burden of debt that we risk placing upon them if we continue the big spending policies of the Republican Party.
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Mr. POLIS. I yield myself 1 minute to respond.
The gentleman from Kentucky called this an historic bill. I think much more of this kind of history, and we risk making our country's solvency history by drowning ourselves in a burden of debt. Again, effectively, for a family business that lost $139,000, losing $137,000 might be nice, but it puts you out of business just the same. I continue to express our wish that we included some of the Democratic cuts in this that added up to four times the amount of the proposed Republican cuts in this bill.
As the Bard put it, the cutting in this bill is a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
With that, it is my honor to yield 3 minutes to the ranking member of the Rules Committee, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter).
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Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.
Mr. POLIS. Just one point. I think what the gentlelady said is that the Senate will have to vote on it, not that they have to pass it, just to be clear.
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Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, this continuing resolution is a first step, all right. It is a first step towards bankruptcy with token cuts.
Madam Speaker, I am proud to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern), a member of the Rules Committee.
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Mr. DREIER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to say first to my friend from Boulder that the notion of arguing that a $40 billion cut is going to take us down the road to bankruptcy is absolutely preposterous.
Mr. POLIS. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Boulder.
Mr. POLIS. Again, the cut is actually somewhere in the $15 billion to $20 billion range, according to both The Wall Street Journal and the AP.
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Mr. POLIS. I appreciate the gentleman from California's willingness to look at defense spending. I know the gentleman from Kentucky mentioned we're in three wars. Perhaps part of the answer is to be in two wars or one war or, God forbid, perhaps we can be at peace again in our lifetime.
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Mr. POLIS. Madam Speaker, I again want to bring it back to the hypothetical American family, small business we're talking about, because the $1.399 trillion figure is boggling to most people. So lop off the zeros there and say, hey, I have a small business, I'm an American family, I will lose $139,000 next year. Let me tell you, is losing $137,000 the next year a step towards solvency or a step towards bankruptcy? I would submit, Madam Chair, ask any small business man in America or small business woman, losing $137,000 instead of $139,000 is a step towards bankruptcy.
Just like that family, we in the United States Congress, we in this country need to come together and make hard choices about where to find additional income, where to cut expenditures, how to get this budget out of red and into the black. That's the difference between where the Democrats stand and the proposal of our friends on the other side. And another difference: A Democratic President has actually balanced the budget. That's a claim that the other side can't make for more than a generation.
It is clear that the Republicans are not serious about the deficit. If they were, this would be a different bill. Again, this is what we're talking about: Taking our Nation another step down the road towards fiscal insolvency and leaving a legacy of debt for the next generation.
Rather than holding the line on spending, the majority is feeding the beast. And yet, what do the Republicans cut rather than rooting out waste at the Pentagon? They cut $1.6 billion from the EPA's effort to protect public health and keep our air and water safe; $950 million from Community Development Block Grants to strengthen neighborhoods and create jobs; $815 million from FEMA grants that help communities prepare for disasters; $10 million to keep our food safe.
When you look at the winners and losers in this budget, it becomes clear what the majority party does and does not value. And they clearly do not mind leaving the next generation a legacy of deficits and debt.
What we're doing in this continuing resolution is increasing the favorite government spending of the majority party, running up the deficit, continuing big tax cuts for special interests while slashing the effort to educate our children, ensure access to health care, keep our air and water clean--oh, and while they're at it, taking away a woman's right to choose.
This is where we could be by working together, Democrats and Republicans. This process, this rule and this bill, are not examples of working together to solve our budget crisis.
We can do better, we must do better. To save America from bankruptcy, we must do better than sound and fury signifying nothing. We need to work together to make the cuts we need to make, to increase the revenues we need to increase, and to examine our entitlement programs to put our Nation on proper fiscal footing for the next generation and remove the mounting burden of debt that faces the next generation of Americans.
I don't see how anyone can argue that somehow reducing--again, at the family level, a $139,000 loss to a $137,000 loss, while it might be a fine thing to do, leaves that family in every bit as dangerous and precarious a fiscal situation as they were before--ask any small business man or small business woman in this country. And after passing this continuing resolution and keeping our government in business another year, we're just punting further down the field about making the cuts we all know we need to make to balance the budget, return to a surplus, and help remove the next generation of Americans from the legacy of debt that is threatening to crush them.
I urge a "no" vote on the rule.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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