OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4089, Sportsmen's Heritage Act of 2012, and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

Date: April 17, 2012
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Unemployed and Low-Income Entitlements and the Safety Net Higher Education Health and Health Care Animals and Wildlife

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Mr. GARAMENDI. Madam Speaker, our good friend from the State of Utah posed the question: What do the American people want?

I suppose that most of us would like to hunt on public land and fish, and the underlying bill does that. Unfortunately, tacked on to that bill--should this rule actually pass the House--will be something that I'm sure the American people do not want. And that is the crux of this current debate. The debate here is really about what will be added to the hunting and fishing legislation.

Let's consider for a moment exactly what it is. It is the end of Medicare as we know it. It sets up a program that will, as surely as we are here on the floor at this moment, terminate Medicare. It's also a bill that will immediately double the interest rate on every student loan taken out here in the United States. It's also a bill that will put 200,000 students out of school, out of college because the Pell Grants are reduced. It's also a bill that will take $80 billion a year out of Medicaid, some 62 percent, 63 percent of which goes to nursing homes. So seniors will not be able to get into nursing homes and those who are there may not be able to stay.

What is being tacked onto the hunting and fishing bill here is something that the American public does not want. The American public does not want to see students thrown out of school, does not want to see Medicare end for seniors, does not want to see seniors no longer able to go to a nursing home, does not want to see the food stamps terminated as unemployment increases and as we find some 20 percent of American children in poverty unable to get a decent meal 7 days a week. That's what the American public does not want, but what the Republicans are offering with this rule is precisely that.

We ought to vote ``no'' on this rule. If you must deem, put it in a separate bill and let's have an up-and-down vote on that.

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