Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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I thank the gentleman from Washington for yielding.

Madam Speaker, today marks the end of the FY11 process, a process that should have been completed a long, long time ago. Failing to stop a government shutdown would have destroyed the American people's confidence in the ability of Congress to govern.

Thankfully, with only minutes to spare last week, the House, the Senate, and the White House came together to avoid a government shutdown, striking a compromise to keep our Federal Government running for the remainder of FY11.

This bill is by no means perfect. I am particularly concerned about the impact of funding reductions to several areas, including a $35 billion cut in Pell Grants for our students; $700 million in cuts for our local and State law enforcement personnel, the people who keep us safe; and I am also very concerned about our rural agricultural communities and the $433 million cut to the Farm Service Agency for direct and indirect loans.

But, Madam Speaker, this bill is a far cry from the draconian meat-cleaver approach of H.R. 1, and I hope my colleagues will think about what we just went through and use this final resolution as an example of how we should approach FY12. Our country cannot afford to repeat the irresponsible process going forward that we resolve here today. Democrats and Republicans on both sides of Capitol Hill must work in a bipartisan fashion to produce a responsible budget that will help grow our economy and responsibly reduce our deficit.

If this spending package becomes law, Congress will have made the largest cut to discretionary spending in the history of this body, cutting nearly $40 billion from the FY10 budget.

The CR provides $73.1 billion for Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, which is $3.4 billion below the FY10 enacted level.

Construction accounts are conformed to the FY11 National Defense Authorization Act, which included reductions to the budget request for FY11. Savings were found by taking reductions in unobligated appropriations from years past, as well as capturing bid savings from projects that have been coming in under budget.

The CR also includes a reduction of $160 million below both the request and the FY10 level for the Department of Veterans Affairs to reflect cancellation of information technology development programs as well as IT program pauses resulting from portfolio management reviews.

The CR also removes funding for the civilian pay raise that was included in the FY11 advances for the VA following the President's decision to freeze pay. In addition, the bill rescinds $75 million from prior year unobligated construction balances. It also rescinds $12 million from the Veterans Benefits Administration for an initiative to place a printer on every desk. Some of these are commonsense reforms that save taxpayer dollars and help put us on a path to fiscal sustainability, and many of these reductions in MilCon-VA were taken in the full year CR passed in the last Congress.

Now, Madam Speaker, the American people want to know that Congress can come together, bridge the partisan differences, and get the country's business done. I sincerely hope that as we finally move on to FY 2012, we remember what we learned in this process and apply it to FY 2012 because no Member of this body wants to go through this ordeal again.

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