Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act of 2012--Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I stand to speak on behalf of this motion to recommit. What we are looking at here with H.R. 2112 is a measure that actually spends more in each of those areas than what we spent in fiscal year 2011. We are in dire economic circumstances in this country. We are currently spending at a rate of roughly $1.5 trillion annually in excess of what we are bringing in.

We have gone to great lengths through a number of accounting mechanisms to demonstrate to the American people that we are doing our best to spend less. In many circumstances, the message that has been sent has been a message of austerity. It becomes increasingly difficult to manage and to maintain that necessary message of austerity, one that is accompanied by hundreds of millions of Americans making sacrifices every day in response to this economic downturn.

It becomes absolutely essential that we actually make cuts. To make actual cuts, I think that means necessarily that we have to spend less in fiscal year 2012 than we spent in fiscal year 2011. We will continue, I fear, to lack credibility if we persist in using whatever techniques we use, accounting-wise or otherwise, to claim we are reducing spending when, in fact, this appropriations package--this minibus spending package, as we sometimes refer to it--actually spends more money than was spent in 2011.

This is why I have submitted this motion. I hope my colleagues will share this concern I have expressed, which has caused me to submit this motion. The idea of the motion is that we bring our spending levels back down in each of these areas to what we spent in fiscal year 2011.

I yield the floor.

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