Make It In America

Floor Speech

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Mr. TONKO. Thank you, Representative Garamendi, and thank you for bringing us together on some very important discussions and laser-sharp focus which is essential as we face this default crisis, where there are those who are dragging their feet and not resolving the default crisis and refuse to have us pay our bills. And when we default on our debt, it's very problematic because it can disrupt our pensions, it can disrupt our 401(k)s, it can disrupt our mortgages because of the interest rate being somewhat fluctuated by that default crisis and our failure to pay our bills.

What I think is important here is that you outline how unfair this process can be, how it can be routed to support easily deep pockets, efforts to give windfall industries a mindless handout, the big oil companies getting a handout. It's much easier to retain that benefit, and it's very difficult to save Medicare. It's a simple majority that can end Medicare.

Many of us go home every week, others as frequently as they can because of the distance they have to travel to get to their districts, and we're greeted by signs like this: Hands off my Medicare.

And it's no wonder, because what we've seen yesterday was the third attempt in this given few months of the 112th Congress to end Medicare. Three votes. One with the Republican Study Committee, one with the Ryan plan, a Path to Prosperity--which we have redesignated as the Road to Ruin. And then yesterday with this cut, burn and whatever, slash-and-burn attempt. I won't even get into the nomenclature because it's misrepresenting what would really happen.

Yesterday, we had a vote on this floor to make it easy to end Medicare and easy to maintain handouts to the oil companies. And when we look at the dollars that are saved by ending Medicare, we see where they somehow are transitioned over to tax cuts that are maintained for the millionaire-billionaire community, mindless handouts, the Big Oil industry.

So this is buyer beware week. We've seen this three times over, and it's an assault on the middle class.

When you talk about the impact on women, you know, an armchair scientist can take a look at the population of seniors and understand the proportional representation to the greater degree is women in that category. So this is an assault on senior women who require Medicare.

We talked about this last night on the floor, that things have changed since 1965 when President Truman and Mrs. Truman were the first to sign up for Medicare with that wonderful legislation. They began a process of dignity for our Nation's seniors where affordable, accessible care, a certainty in their lives, became a much-needed concept because there was cherry-picking going on. There was the unaffordable notion, the inaccessible notion of health care insurance coverage.

And to put that now at risk and develop and mess with our Constitution to make that all work, it's no wonder Wall Street, The Wall Street Journal, called it a very foolish approach. They labeled it in just very negative tones.

And certainly Bruce Bartlett, who was the economic adviser to President Reagan, said that it was akin to an intern writing a bill on a napkin. Well, I think that's a pretty tough slam for our interns. They would do better.

So we need to go forward with sensible strategies. We need to solve the default crisis. And let's face it, it should be about investing in jobs.

The jobs crisis is the number one priority of the American public. We see it in public opinion surveys over and over again. And that job crisis when we resolve it addresses any revenue crisis, any spending crisis, any deficit crisis. This is the best solution: Create jobs, invest in innovation, infrastructure, education.

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Mr. TONKO. Well, by their own acknowledgement, their own leaders indicated that this would enshrine the Republican agenda to end Medicare in the United States Constitution. So what we end up with is that we have these very bold statements made, that right there after the freedom of religion and the freedom of thought, the freedom of assembly, we can have the freedom from health care for anyone age 65 and older. That's not quite an honorable position to follow or to promote.

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Mr. TONKO. Yes. I just think that what we have witnessed is a messing with a very precious document, one that governs this democracy, this Republic in a way that was carefully planned by our founding parents. And to take that precious document and to use it in order to promote a political agenda and one that denies access to a health care concept is wrong.

When we look at this 1966 threshold, when we take it back to spending opportunities at that vintage, we need to keep in mind that Medicare, assisting grandparents, grandma and grandpa, means that they're denying the fundamental fact that since 1966, grandparents, grandma is living 10 years longer, on average. So it's not real to take us back to this unwarranted threshold of 1996. And also, we've had much progress in technology and research in medicine so that there are new opportunities for which we avail ourselves the funds.

So I think that a lot of this is not based on reality. It's not based on the desire to serve. It's rather based on denial. And that's not what this should be about. There is a certain bit of dignity. There is a respect factor shown to the senior population. And I can tell you, when you get messages like this at home, Keep your hands off Medicare, we're getting this in letter format, email format, faxes coming into the office, phone calls. Nine to one, every 10 calls coming in, you'll get nine phone calls of advocacy to not only keep Medicare but to strengthen it.

And what we did, as you know, Representative Garamendi, we went through and provided those screenings and those annual checkups and made certain that no copayments or deductibles would hold back the opportunity for our seniors. We made certain that we began the process of filling the doughnut hole, and we found savings in the Medicare situation.

And, yes, they're right. They talk about cutting back. We found savings by reducing the profit columns of the insurance industry when it came to Medicare and then transferred--in a very fungible way, we transferred those savings into the development, positive outcome for seniors in the pharmaceutical area because we know that the doughnut hole is a very pricey thing for many people. In just a few months into a calendar year, seniors are dipping into their own pockets to pay for the pharmaceutical costs in order to stay well or to recover from an illness.

So there was great compassion shown here, and we moved forward with a way to fill the doughnut hole completely, completely. And we began that process last year. That is denied again in this process.

Again, to the fact of being concerned about women, if you are concerned about women, why would you cut Head Start programs? Many working moms require Head Start, not only to maintain a career or perhaps work, because you may be a single parent, or even a double income household still needs that job.

Head Start is a good way to develop the social, the educational, and the cognitive skills of youngsters. Why would you deny a quarter of a million of children Head Start? That's that attack on women, working women.

Why would you reduce education by 12 percent in title I areas, as they had suggested, as they did with their budget. That's an attack on educators, most of whom are women. It's still a very highly predominant field for women.

So when we look at some of the attacks here by gender, by age, by income strata, it's clearly assumed here, and documented, that it's an assault on middle class America, on working families. And it is time to grow the middle class, strengthen the middle class, enhance their purchasing power. In so doing, you develop a stronger America.

And so we need to go forward with a laser sharp focus and an honesty that's built by truth, not fiction, and do what is best as we go forward to invest in infrastructure, education, and certainly the improvements that we need to make in innovation.

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Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, what I didn't hear, though, was the resolve of the default crisis. I didn't hear advocacy from the other side about paying our bills. I'm hearing about cutting away at middle class values and middle class needs. I didn't hear about the default crisis and paying our bills.

We're saying we need to respond to a default crisis, and we're also talking about a jobs agenda. We haven't seen one jobs bill in the House brought forward. And that is a major concern, because the jobs crisis, when resolved by producing jobs and investing in jobs, resolves the revenue crisis, the spending crisis, the deficit crisis. So we need to go forward.

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Mr. TONKO. Just on the Medicaid/Medicare piece, if I could just say one thing.

When we fall short on the Medicaid side, it falls again upon the property taxpayer, and again, if you're on a fixed income, as many seniors are, and again, the disproportionate number of women in households in the senior years are going to be, again, impacted by a property tax that, when levied on that home, doesn't know if you're unemployed, on fixed income, underemployed, so it will be hitting a retiree on fixed income very, very hard.

And so we're transferring from a progressive income tax and a progressive series of taxes at the Federal level on over to a State situation where it's going to trickle down into a property tax, which is grossly unfair.

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Mr. TONKO. Representative Garamendi, I think that the message from the Democrats in the House of Representatives is straightforward and very logical: Don't end Medicare. We saw three votes to end Medicare in the House. We say save Medicare, make it stronger. But then we talk about cutting, cutting programs that don't create jobs; do those cuts where there are not jobs created. Where there are, save those programs, strengthen them; provide for jobs by investing in education, in innovation, and in infrastructure. And it's very easy when you take the education investment, the infrastructure investment, and certainly the education investment, that equals jobs for Americans, for middle class Americans. And that's what it's all about. If we create jobs, it drives down the unemployment factor, drives down the deficit. And there's no stronger form of medicine, bar none, than jobs being created. It solves a revenue crisis, it solves a deficit crisis, it solves a spending crisis.

Some of these programs are correlated directly with unemployment. There is a need to address the needs of the unemployed, the poor. If you put people to work, if you invest in retraining programs, education, if you invest in R&D to grow, move ideas along to a manufacturing mode and then you make it in America, these are the values that we embrace as a party in the House.

I think it has been a refreshing message, one that really gets to something here. And at the same time we're speaking to the default crisis, we're saying this is how we resolve that default crisis. Don't walk away from the obligation, the responsibility to pay our bills. And as you said, two wars, a pharmaceutical deal for part D for Medicare, and millionaire and billionaire tax cuts were all spent, those were all forms of spending. And all of that, all of that was borrowed in order to spend on tax cuts. And now the bills have come home to be paid. It happened a decade ago--it doesn't matter, they are bills that have to be paid. We cannot put the economic vitality and viability of this Nation at risk or trigger an international economic crisis by not paying our bills.

So we address the default crisis, we save Medicare and strengthen Medicare, and we have a formula of innovation, education, and infrastructure that equals jobs for Americans, working families, and middle class Americans. It's straightforward. It's straightforward.

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Mr. TONKO. I don't know because it was messing with the Constitution. And The Wall Street Journal advised, don't mess with the Constitution, leave the Constitution out of this. And there were those who were economic advisors to President Reagan who said this is frightening--the exact words were very denouncing. And so no one took that seriously. And we spent hours here debating on a format that adjusts the Constitution, and some of the best minds who have worked in government from very conservative perspectives have said this was a wasteful measure.

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Mr. TONKO. The original tech valley. Thank you, Representative Garamendi. I know we don't have much time. I'll do this quickly.

The 21st Congressional District that I represent in upstate New York is the host community to the Erie Canal barge canal. It gave birth to a necklace of communities dubbed mill towns that became the epicenters of invention and innovation. That same pioneer spirit is fed today. It's part of our DNA. But you need investments in R&D. It's why my region is now one of the top five in the country for the growth of green collar jobs, innovation that is being advanced simply by investing, as we did in the prior Congress, in job creation. Not cutting programs that provide opportunities for work.

Instead, they are going and building up programs like handouts to the oil companies that aren't producing a job, tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. They need the dollars for that. They're cutting valuable programs that either speak to the dignity factor for our seniors through Medicare or advancing research and development that grows jobs. That's what we need to do.

The Democrats are on message. Jobs, jobs, jobs. Solve the jobs crisis, you'll resolve the deficit situation, the revenue situation, and the spending situation.

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Mr. TONKO. Our country is strong. Our economy is one that is bolstered by job creation. And we've said it so many times over and over again: Don't cut valuable programs. Allow our seniors the dignity of Medicare. That enables them to have economic sustainability, vitality. That is important. And we invest from children to seniors in a way that produces jobs, strengthens regional, State, and the national economies, and we go forward.

And I think the optimism is there. Our message is one of can do, not denial, cuts, slash, burn.

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