Fiscal Choices
Floor Speech
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Mr. TONKO. I thank you, Representative Yarmuth, and thank you for leading the next 30 minutes of discussion here which I think are very critical to the lives of Americans, the American public and American working families across our Nation.
It is an honor to serve with you on our Budget Committee as we spent countless hours yesterday dealing with a saga of a budget for 2012. Just as we're trying to avoid a shutdown of America's government this very hour, they are also pushing through in a rather rushed format a 2012 fiscal plan that takes the pain and suffering of the 2011 plan and expands it exponentially. They grow it drastically, the pain for 2012.
As you indicated, these are choices that we have before us. I believe firmly that our budgets, whatever level--Federal, State, local--are a reflection of our values, our principles, our priorities. That's where we are now, whether we are trying to avoid a shutdown for the 2011 fiscal year which is looming over us, or whether we are putting together the 2012 fiscal plan. It is about priorities and values and principles that we hold near and dear. It is also a statement on an economic agenda.
I have before me here this chart that speaks about the 1.8 million jobs that have been added since last year, since 2010; 1.8 million private sector jobs. You can see the precipitous drop that came with the red ink of the close of the Bush recession. And then early in 2009, we began to recover. We stopped the bleeding of the recession, and it has been a slow but steady and upward and forward climb as we have introduced new jobs into the private sector arena that allows us to now work away at those 8.2 million jobs that were lost during the Bush recession.
Why we would want to stop that progress is beyond me; but those are the cuts that will be made here in the 2011 scenario, by which we are attempting to avoid a shutdown, and the 2012 budget where there are cuts to R&D and to science and technology.
I served as president and CEO of NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, prior to coming here a couple of years ago. I saw firsthand what science and tech means in terms of job growth and expanding the opportunities.
And so these cuts that are part of the 2011 plan and the 2012 budget that we're dealing with in double-dose fashion will mean tremendous pain for our middle class families.
We need to commit to a jobs agenda. The people told Democrats and Republicans alike in campaign season it's about jobs, jobs, jobs, and the economy. It's not about growing another pricetag, draining our economy with the cost of a shutdown. We need to avoid that shutdown.
One of the concerns yesterday when we were meeting on the 2012 budget format was--my concern, your concern, our concern as Democrats on that Budget Committee--to avoid the end of Medicare. This plan, introduced by our Republicans on the Budget Committee, is called the ``roadmap.'' And I said it's a road to ruin for our middle class, for our working families. They want to end Medicare, a system that has worked for over 40 years for 46 million Americans. And what does it do? It shifts risk from government over to the senior citizen. It asks the senior citizen to dig deep into the pocket, and then every year dig deeper.
They are already suggesting that the beneficiaries' costs will more than double by the year 2022 and then more than triple by the year 2030. Is this what we're about? Are these our values? Are these our principles? Are these our priorities? I would say boldly, no, they are not. They are not. And senior citizens are already getting wind of this idea, and they are supporting our efforts to stop the end to Medicare, which is part of the format that they have introduced, part of the legislation they have introduced for their budget for 2012.
We failed in that attempt. You and I supported it--Gwen Moore has joined us I see. We all supported that push to end their desire to end Medicare. We failed with it, and that will be coming to a vote before the full House I think next week.
So these are the things that people need to be alerted to. These are the issues that are going to be tough for middle class America to assume for the poor, the working poor, for the masses out there. And when we see the concentration of wealth and all the benefits and all the focus being in just the upper echelon, we understand what their choices are. Their choices are different than ours--they're with Big Oil, they're with big banks, they're with special interests, they're with millionaires, billionaires. They're with handouts to the oil companies that are sitting on record profits of over $1 trillion. We're there with the middle class families, the working families, making certain that we create jobs, retain jobs, and keep this pattern of activity going.
Thank you, Representative Yarmuth, for bringing us together for what I think is an urgent, urgent dialogue that needs to reach every household in America.
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Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Yarmuth.
I will do this quickly because I know time is ticking away.
We all mentioned the concern about Medicare and how they're going to privatize it. Well, here it is, the end to Medicare. This is the buyer beware chart. This shows the Republican proposal in 2022 dollars and the Medicare model in 2022 dollars. And the voucher simply isn't going to cover much. They're suggesting 32 percent. So that leaves a $12,500 price tag to be assumed by--you guessed it--the senior. Dig into your pocket. Under the current Medicare model, it leaves you with a $6,150 price tag.
So it's going to more than double the commitment from the senior citizen. This is the ``buyer beware'' chart. The happy shopping spree isn't so happy. Representative Yarmuth, I just wanted to point that out. The bar graph shows it plain and simple: buyer beware.
This is an attack on middle class America. It's an attack on the system that has worked well for so many decades, and certainly it is a priority that is not ours. It is theirs. We are for the working families of this country, and we will continue to fight that fight.
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