Congressional Progressive Caucus Hour: Sequestration

Floor Speech

Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today on behalf of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to repeat and enhance the calls made by our colleagues today to put a stop to these disastrous spending cuts known as sequestration.

It's been interesting. For the last 45 minutes I've listened to people from the other side of the aisle talk very passionately about their concerns on government spending, on debt, on government waste. And yet, almost not a single one of those issues is covered by what we have before us in the next 48 hours, which is sequestration.

Sequestration is a thoughtless approach that makes irresponsible, indiscriminate cuts down virtually every single budget line. If you think there is waste with a $4 million TV station in the IRS, as one speaker said, sequestration won't stop that. If you think we have too much debt, sequestration won't stop that. If you think we have too much fraud, abuse, and waste, sequestration won't stop that.

But what sequestration will do is have a real impact on the middle class families, not just in Wisconsin, where I come from, but across the country, and that's why so many of the people in the Progressive Caucus and Democrats have such a strong concern about what this country is facing, because of this House, this Chamber's inability to act in the next 48 hours.

You will hear from a number of people from different parts of the country this afternoon who are going to talk about the very real impact of sequestration on their States and on their districts, and the very impact that I think the middle class is feeling that doesn't really relate to what we heard for the last 45 minutes, but relates to the very issues that people care about--education, health care and so many other areas.

It's funny, last week I got a chance to be back home in my district, and as I talked to the people of south central Wisconsin, it's not at all what you hear talked about here in Washington, D.C. It's almost as if it was a different country, not just the District of Columbia, but a completely different country when we talk about sequestration.

And what people care about is, how do they make sure they've got a job? How do they make sure they've got enough money to pay for the food on their table, to support their children, to provide opportunities for their families?

But instead what we see is quite different with the sequestration cuts that are going to happen. There's a real impact on the middle class, and it's pending and it's looming because we can't get the people in this room to sit down and get our jobs done.

I heard multiple stories over the last week, and just in the last 45 minutes, about how sequestration came about. I can tell you, people in Beloit and people in Barneveld and people in Baraboo and small communities across Wisconsin don't care about the finger-pointing of how it happened. They don't care that in 1985 this idea started, and it's been a bad idea. It was such a bad idea that it was agreed to last year because they thought absolutely no one would go for this idea, and now we have people arguing, don't worry; we'll fix it a month from now.

I can tell you, in Wisconsin, we're a little different. When our check oil comes on in Wisconsin, we check our oil, and if we have to we put oil in the engine. Here in Washington, D.C., we just keep running it until the car stops and the engine breaks down, and then we all decide that we're going to somehow fix the engine, which is a much more costly process. But I guess that Wisconsin common sense doesn't happen in Washington, D.C., and it's clearly not happening in this House as we deal with sequestration.

I have a couple of colleagues here who are going to share some stories, and then I'm going to come back and share some more stories from my area, some of the very cuts you're going to see in Wisconsin and nationwide. I'm going to share some real stories from people who, not just from my district but across the country, are talking about the impact on their lives.

I want to share a little bit about my experience. I spent 6 years on a budget-writing committee in the Wisconsin Legislature, and I chaired that committee. And we did things in a very different way and in a very bipartisan way, something that is a foreign concept to Washington, D.C.

First I would like to recognize one of my colleagues from the west coast. Representative Mark Takano is a fellow freshman. He represents the Riverside area of California. A teacher by profession for over 20 years, also a community college board member, so he's had a lot of experience and is recognized in our caucus as one of our foremost experts on education. But he knows the real-life impact that this is going to have on California and on his district.

I would like to yield some of my time, Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman from California.

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Mr. POCAN. Thank you, Mr. Cartwright, for continuing your fight for families in Pennsylvania and across the country.

When I listen to Mr. Cartwright and I listen to Mr. Takano and I listen to speakers throughout the day from the Democratic side of the aisle, I can't help but feel that there is an overwhelming--when you look at sequestration, you're really looking at what's happening right now in Europe, and it's called austerity. We know that right now, by doing these massive cuts in Europe like we're now trying to pattern right here in the United States, we know what the net effect is. Right now in England, they are facing a triple-dip recession--not just a double dip, a triple-dip recession. We look at where they are in unemployment; their unemployment is rising. We look at where their deficit is; it isn't going away. All they've done is taken away the very tools that stimulate our economy.

When you take away the jobs that Mr. Cartwright and Mr. Takano talked about, that means real people don't have money to spend and build the economy. When you take away the loan guarantees as this sequester will do, real small businesses don't have capital so they can grow and hire more workers. When you have the very effects that we are seeing done right now in Europe happen here, well, what effect do you think we're going to have? I can guarantee it's not going to be fixing that $4 million TV station at the IRS that we heard about. Instead, it's going to have a real impact on every single family throughout the country that's not in the top 1 percent.

So at this point, I want to share a few statistics from the heartland, and then I've been joined by another colleague from Florida. We are literally going across the country and showing what these impacts have. But let me share some statistics from my State.

We know from a George Mason University study that over 2 million people in this country could lose their jobs because of the sequester. That's 36,000 jobs in Wisconsin, a State that, unfortunately, thanks to our Governor, we have not bounced back like other States in our region. It's those failed economic policies that we've had in Wisconsin by our Governor that have already held back our economic growth, and now we're going to jeopardize 36,000 more jobs in my home State.

Wisconsin is going to lose millions of dollars--$19 million for education just for disadvantaged students and for special ed. That's going to affect tens of thousands of students in our State.

Head Start funding, while we know the impacts that are going to happen nationwide that Mr. Cartwright talked about, it's going to have hundreds of kids who are not going to have that funding in my State of Wisconsin.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison--which is one of the most important public universities in this country, it is a world-class institution for research, for stem cell research, for all sorts of biotech and high-tech innovations, one of the best graduate programs in almost every program in the entire country, and yet we know they're going to see about $36 million lost that would go into research and development and financial aid and other programs that will affect real people and real jobs in my State.

I have had doctors come and medical schools come to us in the State of Wisconsin and say they are going to lose the ability, because of the sequester, to have people in residence programs. I think it was 900 or 1,000 people won't have positions. And one of the best ways we keep doctors in Wisconsin, in the rural parts of Wisconsin where it's tough sometimes to keep those doctors, is by having residency programs. That will be cut because of the sequester.

Nine hundred thousand fewer patients will be served as a result of $120 million in cuts to community health centers that are vital in those rural communities in Wisconsin. In my district, in Dane County alone, we have an agricultural economy that's greater than 15 States in this country--that's just one county in my district--and yet we're going to see those programs hurt and cut, as well as programs like Meals on Wheels. Four million meals may not happen in Wisconsin because of those cuts.

Finally, one of the areas that I think we hear lip service to from people on the other side of the aisle--and you see real action from people on this side of the aisle--is what are we doing for small businesses, not the big businesses, not those who outsource jobs overseas, not those who domicile in other countries so they don't have to pay taxes. I'm talking about the small businesses like mine that I deal with on a daily basis.

For 25 years I've had a small business. It's the people who pay their taxes and who hire the workers who are the real economic engines for our community.

Well, thanks to the sequester, we could see up to $900 million less in loan guarantees to help stimulate the economy. So what sequester is is nothing more than an austerity policy that's going to provide so many cuts and damages to the economy that we will see, according to what we've been told by the experts, could cut our economic growth in half in the next year. And we can't afford to have a double-dip recession, much less a triple-dip recession, like we're seeing right now in Europe.

With that, I would like to yield to yet another great freshman colleague of mine. This is a woman from southern Florida. Like myself, we've spent time in our legislatures. She is an expert in many areas, and she was a legislative leader in the State of Florida. I could think of no one better to tell us about the potential cuts in her State than Ms. Frankel from south Florida.

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Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman from Florida hit it exactly on the head. This is about real people. This is about the effects that sequestration will have on real people, the kind of people who, when they hear ``sequestration,'' they think it's a medieval torture. Average people don't come up with a term that only Washington could devise, which is what we've done with the sequester.

Let me tell a real story from my district. There's a woman in Marshall, Wisconsin, who sent me an email. I'd like to share that with the American people.

Here's what she says:

It's being reported that the effect of the sequester on average Americans will be minimal. In the case of our family, this is not true. My son is a civilian firefighter at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. Today, he gave me a call to tell me that all the firefighters would be getting a letter Friday explaining that their shift crew size will go from 19 to seven immediately. As a firefighter, he must work 106 hours--versus 80 for the rest of us--to receive overtime. In addition, their overtime will be eliminated. That will result in a 40 percent reduction in pay for my son's family. His wife is in graduate school, and they had their first child in December 2012. There is a real face to the reductions. Please use your energy and Wisconsin progressive common sense to put a stop to this across-the-board reduction.

That's another real story of someone being affected. It's not about a $4 million TV station at the IRS. It's about the real people in this country who will see the impact in the next month and the next month and the next month.

And as much as the Republicans tell us that they'll try to fix it a month from now--again, I don't know why you wouldn't just fix it instead of letting these devastating cuts come in.

I want to share another story that came in from Oregon, Wisconsin. This is from a case manager who works with seniors at Meals on Wheels. Let me read their story. They said:

I work in Beaverton, Oregon, as a case manager for seniors and people with disabilities. I work with seniors who live on $700 a month. That's all they have to pay for rent, utilities, food, and medication. If Congress cuts funding for the programs that my department administers, the seniors I work with could end up in the hospital, sick, or just living on the streets.

Budget cuts also affect our jobs. I'm a single parent with a child who goes to school. So if there are cuts, I might need assistance myself.

We see the faces of our seniors, we see their homes, and we see how they live on a very limited income. Some legislators say it's too much money and we can't afford it. But if we don't provide services, these people could literally die if we take away their life support. That's what our services represent to the seniors who I work with: life support.

Look, this isn't about pointing fingers and assessing blame on whose idea this was. Let's figure out how to get it done, how to fix this.

I can tell you, when I served on our finance committee in the State legislature in Wisconsin, I had the opportunity to serve on that for 6 years. I served on that 16-member committee when there were 12 Republicans and 4 Democrats; I served on that committee when there were eight Republicans and eight Democrats; and I served on that committee and chaired it when there were 12 Democrats and 4 Republicans. I've been on pretty much every configuration you can have. The way we did our budgeting was we would literally spend 3 days a week, 8 hours a day for 3 or 4 months just agonizing over every detail of the budget because it was important. Every single program we had, every single dollar we spent meant something to someone. We had to make sure that we were spending it in the most wise and efficient way possible.

I've heard a lot about how Federal Government spends too much, how there's waste, fraud, and abuse, but the sequester doesn't address that. The sequester addresses these across-the-board, indiscriminate, irresponsible cuts we would never do when we were actually laying out the budgets we did back in our State of Wisconsin.

I feel that these real cuts, these real effects that we're going to see could be stopped, but the only way we can do that is to actually have that impact right here in this House of Representatives. We need to get people to come back to the table. Stop the finger-pointing, stop the blaming, stop saying you'll fix something a month later, maybe.

I'll tell you, last week when I was back in Wisconsin, I have heard more than 10 or 20 times that people have no confidence in Washington. How many times have we just kicked the can on the debt ceiling? How many times have we faced a deadline and the days before maybe started talking? Here we are 2 days before these meat-ax cuts will take effect, and this House has done nothing.

We need to take a much wiser approach to this. We need to make sure that we stop these cuts that are going to have real impacts to small business owners, to seniors, to parents with children who go to school, to health care for so many hundreds of thousands of people across this country, to the people who are going to medical school, to the people going to our universities, to the researchers, to everything that we've heard of just in the last 45 minutes. From California, to Pennsylvania, to Florida, to Wisconsin, you've heard the real impacts of the sequester. Now it's up to us, the House of Representatives, to act. Yet we haven't.

We've had our opportunities, and the Progressive Caucus and the Democrats have put forth real alternatives that will provide both cuts and revenue that will really deal with the amount of money that we have to face in the next 2 days to take care of, and yet no one has come to the table. There's no other plan in this room right now offered to deal with the sequester that we're going to face in the next 48 hours.

On behalf of the Progressive Caucus and our ability to talk today to the public, I hope you've heard the real impact of the sequester. I hope you'll contact your Representatives, no matter where they are across the country. Email them, call them and tell them, Go get the job done. You've got 48 hours to do that. I don't want cuts to the schools that my kids go to. I don't want my grandparent or my parent or my neighbor to lose their ability to get that Meals on Wheels. I don't want my neighbor who is a small business owner who is trying to jump-start the economy to lose access to capital.

You have to make that call because you're our bosses. So, please, in the next 24 hours, reach out to us and tell your Member of Congress to get to work. Our job is to end the sequester. If we don't, you'll be watching, and you expect more of us.

Mr. Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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