Providing for Consideration of H.R. 5652, Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012
Floor Speech
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Mr. GARAMENDI. I think I'll let this thing cool down a little bit.
But the gentleman on the other side of this debate is quite wrong. There's no balance in this particular bill at all. There is no balance.
The cuts are devastating. Meals on Wheels for seniors, Medicare programs, Medicaid programs for seniors. And if you take a look at the rest of the issues, school lunch programs, kids are going to go hungry. There's no balance.
There is no tax proposal in this. There's no balance at all.
But the reason I rise today is to add one more problem that's not being solved by this reconciliation. The National Flood Insurance bill was folded in to this reconciliation, and it has a gaping hole. The Corps of Engineers has gone through the Nation's levees and downgraded those levees, creating an enormous problem for agriculture throughout this Nation, and certainly in California, where many of the levees have been downgraded. It's now impossible for farmers and the agricultural community to obtain loans to continue to produce and to enhance their agricultural production.
This amendment, which I had hoped could be put into the bill but was not allowed by the Rules Committee, would simply require an immediate study by the Department of Agriculture and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to undertake a study on the impact of the downgrading of the levees and the resultant inability to get national flood insurance, and the impact that that has on the agricultural communities, keeping in mind that agriculture, in a flood zone, is one of the very best ways to reduce the risk.
I would hope that the majority would consider, as this thing moves along, to fold into the National Flood Insurance Program an opportunity for the Farm Flood Program that I've introduced, which would allow farmers to obtain national flood insurance, and then the lending that the banks could make available so they can continue to build the necessary facilities for their agricultural production.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. I thank you for the courtesy of yielding.
The fact of the matter is that 1.8 million people will not be able to get the supplemental food that they get from food stamps. They're going to be hungry. That's a fact.
Now, the rest of the fact is the application process has been supported by the Federal Government and by the legislation so that the States can reach out to those people that are hungry and that are able to qualify for food stamps. That's gone in this bill. So the ability to reach out and to bring into those programs----
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