Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

The Democrats have a substitute amendment that would replace the sequester in a different way. It would prevent the across-the-board cuts from happening to defense and the non-defense programs. So there's an agreement that that meat-ax approach is the wrong way. We have an alternative.

The gentleman just talked about how we have this great debate of ideas on the floor of the House. I have a very simple question: Why are we not going to get an up-or-down vote on our idea on how we would replace the sequester in a balanced way?

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I don't want to take up all your time, but I would like to make the point that what our substitute does is, dollar for dollar, replace the sequester, which is what our Republican colleagues have said is the object of this effort, which is to make sure that we don't have the meat-ax approach.

I would just note that the gentleman said that one of the reasons that we're not going to have an opportunity to vote on ours is because it doesn't comply exactly with the rules. In bringing the Republican bill to the floor today, I'm reading right here on the report, the committee report, you waived three rules. You waived three rules, and yet you can't allow an up-or-down vote on a substitute amendment. You know that you have it within the power to allow our substitute, just as you waived these three rules.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Massachusetts, and thank him for his leadership on efforts to ensure that those families who are struggling most in our country continue to have access to food and nutrition, and that children in our country continue to have access to health care. And that's what this debate is all about, because we do have an alternative.

There is no disagreement on two things: Number one, we need to reduce our deficit in this country in a credible way; number two, the meat-ax approach of the sequester is not a smart way to do it.

So how should we go about reducing our deficit? Well, we propose to do it in the same balanced way that every bipartisan commission that has looked at this issue has recommended--through a combination of difficult cuts. And I would remind everybody that just last August we cut a trillion dollars through a combination of cuts as well as cuts to tax breaks for special interests and by asking the wealthiest people in this country, people who are making $1 million a year, to contribute a little bit more toward deficit reduction.

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. You won't ask one penny more for people making over $1 million a year to help reduce our deficit, not one penny. And the math is pretty simple after that; because you ask nothing of them, your budget whacks everyone else. That's why your budget ends the Medicare guarantee; that's why you cut $800 billion out of Medicaid; and that's why, in your sequester proposal here, you whack programs that help the most vulnerable, struggling families.

Let's talk about what the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said your proposal would do: 22 million households with children would see their food and nutrition support cut under the SNAP reductions; 300,000 kids will no longer get the school lunch program; 300,000 kids will lose their health coverage under the children's health insurance program. Those are the decisions you have to make because you don't want to ask the oil companies to give up their taxpayer subsidy.

We say the American people would make a different choice. We have that different choice in the substitute amendment. That substitute amendment would prevent those cuts to the Defense Department. It would prevent cuts to NIH and biomedical research. But it would prevent those cuts without whacking seniors and children's health programs. It would do it in a balanced way.

We say we don't need the direct payments to agricultural businesses. These are payments that go to ag businesses whether they're making money or not. The spigot is on. We cut those; you don't in your proposal that's before us today. Why not? Instead, you cut the food and nutrition programs.

So we think the right approach is the balanced approach that every bipartisan group that has gotten together has recommended.

Because 98 percent of our Republican colleagues have signed this pledge saying they're not going to ask the folks at the very top to put in one penny, one dime more, you're smacking everybody else. We don't think that's the right way to go. We agree we should reduce the deficit. And we eliminate the sequester, but just in a different way.

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