Our Nation's Economy
Floor Speech
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Ellison) is recognized for 18 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for recognizing me. I am coming down to the floor tonight to speak on behalf of the Progressive Caucus to talk about the real situation when it comes to our Nation's economy.
First of all, the Republican Caucus essentially created this massive budget deficit themselves through two wars and a massive tax cut for the very wealthiest Americans--the people who didn't need a big tax cut, who didn't ask for a big tax cut but who got one anyway, and who demanded, in exchange for poor people who were unemployed, getting unemployment extensions, that the richest of the rich get a bunch of tax breaks or get them extended so that, even when they die, they can just pass on massive amounts of money to their heirs and never have to do anything to help the society that helped them make all that money in the first place. I'm not talking about taking it all. I'm talking about something called the estate tax, which is something that every society has, and it just makes sense.
You have heard, Mr. Speaker, a lot of things that just ain't so--aren't true--and are just invented.
We see our Republican colleagues saying very piously, Oh, we've got to make sure we don't pass on this deficit to our children and grandchildren. Well, they created the deficit. They created the deficit through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest people and an Iraq war, which never, ever, ever should have been fought. So now what they say is the richest of the rich don't have to chime in; they don't have to help out; they don't have to give up anything. They just want to take it out of the poorest of the poor. Now they want to say, Oh, we have to have an adult conversation with our seniors.
What does that mean, Mr. Speaker? That's insulting to me.
To say to a 65-year-old person who has worked his whole life, who maybe has pain in his back because of the hard work he has done and tell him, We have to have an adult conversation, I hope every senior in this country turns to the Republican Caucus and says, Sonny, young lady, don't you tell me about having an adult conversation. I'm the adult around here.
Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that an adult conversation means you're going to try to cut benefits for people who have worked hard and have paid into Social Security. That's not fair. That doesn't make any sense. By the way, Social Security doesn't contribute to the budget deficit. We actually borrow money from Social Security. Social Security is something that is the crown jewel of American politics and the crown jewel of our Nation. It is one of the finest programs that our country has ever seen, and it is something that says that our seniors will not live their golden years in abject poverty. It's an income source. It's how we honor our people who have been able to stick around and carve a path for the rest of us. Now some folks in our Republican Caucus want to have an adult conversation with them. That is an absurdity, and I think we ought to call it what it is.
In a few days, we're going to be dealing with the budget. In a few days, we're going to deal with the CR. The CR is the continuing resolution. The CR really represents a Republican pink slip for America. The Republican Caucus had their way. They were against regulation. They deregulated everything. We said, You know what? Those things, those derivatives, they don't need to be regulated at all. They promoted this philosophy of no regulation of big business. What it resulted in is the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression--the worst one. A financial crisis and housing crisis all over the place were caused because the people who were supposed to mind the store refused to. They figured that, you know, all the folks who work in our Nation's economy--the businesspeople, the industry folks--would just always do the right thing. The market would solve every question.
Well, the market didn't solve every question.
Markets are important things, as people know, and they can be extremely helpful, but they need folks to regulate them because there are social activities that human beings conduct and engage in. Everybody knows, when human beings get together and do something, some of them will do the right thing, and some of them will not. That's why we have police. The police officer is not for the honest person. He's for the person who needs to be watched after. In every market, most people do the right thing, and some people do not; but we said no regulation, so the cop on the beat was gone, and even the good actors in the housing market were getting out-competed because the bad ones were willing to do anything, so it was a race to the bottom.
Then after the Republicans pushed their philosophy of laissez-faire economics, it failed us. That's why under President Bush there needed to be a massive bailout of Wall Street, because that philosophy failed us.
Now, all of a sudden, these guys act like, well, it's the Democrats' fault that the budget deficit is here. President Obama literally helped to lead saving this economy. We saved the American auto industry. You would think they'd say thank you. We saved Goldman Sachs. We saved all these big banks. Now you would think, by the bonuses they're handing out to each other, that they would have more appreciation than they've shown so far. Literally--literally--President Obama helped save this economy and put it back in shape.
Private job growth is going up. When the Republicans had the Presidency and both Houses of Congress, in President Bush's last month in Congress, we saw 741,000 jobs lost. We were losing millions of jobs under Bush. Then as soon as the Democrats get in, we begin to add jobs back on, but we didn't add them on fast enough. Part of the reason is we couldn't get any cooperation from the Republican Caucus.
The fact is now they have gone out there, and they have told the American people it's not health care; it's death panels. Oh, it's not financial reform; it's the Democrats' bailing out people. Wait a minute. The bailout happened in the Bush regime. The Bush White House was in operation during that, and they just sort of bamboozled a lot of folks.
The fact is that once they get in, first thing they do is they read the Constitution. Now, there's nothing wrong with that. I love our Constitution. I'm a lawyer, studied constitutional law, taught it in fact; but I can read the Constitution on my own time. I don't need to take up floor time for that.
Okay. So then you'd think they're going to get to getting America back to work and doing some jobs after that. Well, guess again. What they do next after that is they want to repeal health care. They want to repeal seniors' ability to get that donut hole closed up. They want to repeal seniors' ability to get free preventative care. They want to repeal seniors' ability to be able to get some real help when it comes to meeting their basic needs in the health care system. They want to get rid of the system to squeeze out waste, fraud, and abuse out of Medicare so we can make it a program more solvent and to last longer.
They want to repeal all that. They want to repeal health care; but you know what, the Senate was never going to go for it and the President is not going to go for it. And they knew it and they knew it and they knew it, but that didn't stop them, Mr. Speaker. The Republican caucus went on ahead with health care repeal anyway, wasting hours on the floor when we could have been talking about jobs.
So, first of all, we take up floor time to read the Constitution, which you should do your own anyway, and then they take up time with this repeal effort, which they knew was never going anywhere. We haven't dealt with jobs yet. It's February 10 and we haven't seen the Republican caucus take up a single measure that would put anyone back to work. And you know what, I hope the American people are watching and paying attention very closely because they promised a lot, and so far they've given absolutely nothing.
The other day they brought in a measure to try to take money from the United Nations. The problem facing the American people is not the United Nations. It's no jobs. But our friends in the majority caucus, they went out and told the American people some stuff. They took advantage of people's pain, and they got themselves elected and then the first thing they do is abandon any effort to get the American people back to work.
So this week we've had nothing on jobs. This week we've had nothing on jobs at all, and next week they're not just going to do nothing on jobs, they're going to start putting in policies that are going to get rid of jobs.
So let's talk about it. The Republican pink slip for America will further devastate the economy. The best way to get the economy moving is to create jobs. You hear Republicans in the caucus say, well, the government doesn't create jobs. Well, tell that to a police officer, tell that to a teacher, tell that to a firefighter, tell that to a construction worker, tell that to somebody who makes sure that our streets and our lights on our streets are in good working order. Of course, the government creates jobs. But not only does that, the government helps create rules that actually help the private sector make jobs. This is just a fact.
You want to balance the budget and deal with the deficit, which I certainly do, start putting America back to work, but that's not what the Republicans are doing.
What they're doing is they are going after public employees, and they are going after programs that provide important and vital services to the American people provided by public employees. Republicans are giving a pink slip to America as they try to go after the public employees, as they try to stop and even end up cutting people who provide important public services to our country. The American people voted for jobs, and all they got was a pink slip.
The Republican budget cuts, which we are beginning to already hear serious rumbles about, mean cuts if you're a nurse, mean cuts if you're a teacher, mean cuts if you're a firefighter or a police officer or construction worker; but not only that, not only that, we're talking about, folks, more than that. Here's a list in front of my face. I have a list of 70 spending cuts to be included in the continuing resolution coming up next week if they can ever get around to it. They've been having problems with that recently.
Flood control and coastal emergencies, $30 million, they want to cut that. Wait a minute. These are people who make sure that when there are floods and when there are coastal emergencies, there is someone who will help people who are in peril and in trouble. This is not some nameless, faceless program. This is hardworking professionals who work on our Nation's coasts to make sure that things are not dangerous. Oh, that's $30 million. How many jobs does that cut? I don't know how many jobs it cuts, but it cuts $30 million from the budget.
Energy efficiency and renewable energy: $899 million. $899 million cut out of energy efficiency and renewable energy in a time when we need to be going toward green jobs. We need to be doing more with efficiency. We need to do something. We need to weatherize those old, windy homes so we don't need so much energy to heat them up or cool them down. In a time when we are driving toward the future, when nations around the world are greening themselves, our Republican caucus says cut $899 million, that $899 million which employs the American public and, of course, some private workers to help provide important services.
They want to cut the Office of Science by $1.1 billion. Science and innovation. Where do the members of the Republican caucus think the jobs are going to be? And if you cannot get people to work, then you can't get them to pay taxes; and if you can't get them to pay taxes, then we're not going to lower the deficit. But still, they want to cut the Office of Science $1.1 billion.
The Internal Revenue Service. They want to cut the Internal Revenue Service. Aren't those the guys who actually go get the money to deal with the budget deficit, Mr. Speaker? They want to cut the Internal Revenue Service $593 million. They want to cut the people who actually go get the money to help fill the budgetary holes. That is absolutely not logical. They want to deal with the folks who go get--who don't pay, who don't pay their taxes. They want to get rid of the people who go get that revenue.
International Trade Administration. Now, our country could do much more in the area of exports. International Trade Administration helps to produce and promote exports. That's us selling things to foreigners which makes money for our country which helps us push down the deficit. They say cut it. They don't have a vision for growing our economy. They have a vision, a dark vision of just cutting it, reducing it, lowering it. They have a defensive view of America and not a bold courageous view of America.
The COPS program. The COPS program, community-oriented policing. They want to cut it $600 million. How many of our Nation's brave members of law enforcement wearing those blue uniforms, protecting our streets all over this country are employed through a COPS grant? Quite a few. The Republican caucus says get rid of them.
What about NASA? Space exploration? So many important things come from space exploration, from satellites, all kinds of important things that we have learned here and get from NASA, $379 million. Get rid of it.
The EPA, you would think we can keep the program that keeps us breathing clean air. Nope, got to get rid of those; and, you know, I can go right on down the line.
What about WIC: women, infants and children? WIC. A poor mom and her kids better figure out what they're going to do because the Republican caucus wants to cut $758 million out of that program. That's just cold-hearted and mean right there.
And let's keep on marching down the list. HUD community development block grants which have helped cities all over this country apply funds to problems that are facing them and doing it on a flexible basis because it's not just for this program or for that you give the city block grant money. They decide how they apply those funds. Cut that $530 million.
LIHEAP contingency fund. This is so people who live in cold northern States can have some heat. Now you want to cut that program, so people can be in the cold? Literally in the cold and figuratively, too.
What about the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund? I actually am a big fan of clean drinking water, Mr. Speaker, and the Republican caucus wants to get rid of that one to the tune of $250 million.
It goes on and it goes on and it goes on and on and on. Important programs that are literally powered by men and women who work for the Federal Government, tossed away and will result in the pain and injury to this very fragile economy.
You know, people listening to this broadcast tonight, Mr. Speaker, should know that if I am a public employee and somebody else works for a private employer and we both go to the local grocery store and buy groceries, the dollars spend the same way. You cut all these people out, you're going to cut consumer demand and you're going to send this economy back into recession.
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