Donna Christensen

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Physicians and other providers, the thing that we don't talk about a lot is the jobs that will be created through this Affordable Care Act. We did finally pass a transportation bill, and thank God that will begin to create some jobs and save some jobs, but the health care reform bill is also a job-creating bill. It's projected it will create about 4 million jobs of all kinds over the 10-year period. So we've been creating jobs as well in the Affordable Care Act. I would like to yield such time as she might consume to the gentlelady from Ohio, Congresswoman Fudge.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you. Congresswoman Fudge, you're right. This is not a win for Democrats. It's not a win for the President. This is a win for the American people. Thank you for bringing up the rebates, the $1.1 billion in rebates. In addition to the rebates--because some insurance companies have spent over their 80 percent that has to be provided in service--the Secretary has been able, in at least 12 States already, to keep the increases in premiums at 10 percent or less. That's another function of the Affordable Care Act. And you know our constituents have been crying out over the increases in premiums that they've been experiencing every year, and now the Affordable Care Act gives the Secretary the authority to keep those premiums within not more than a 10 percent increase.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you. So as my colleagues have all said, the Supreme Court has upheld the law. It is settled law. It's time for us to move on. This is landmark legislation, landmark legislation like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP. We have a lot more work that the American people need us to do: We need to continue the middle-income tax cuts. We need to pass the American Jobs Act. We need to continue to address the issue of the mortgages that are causing people to lose their homes. I was reading today in one of the papers that African Americans are expected to bear the burden of the mortgage fallout for many years to come, longer than everyone else. And then we also have to implement the Affordable Care Act. We have the exchanges. I know there is a lot of talk about the exchanges and whether we'll be able to provide the subsidies, but what we ought to be doing is working together to make sure that that very important part of this law can be fully implemented. We're talking about the working poor, people who are doing the right thing, being responsible, working and trying to take care of their families. It would be so unfair to them, now that they see within their reach affordable health care, to take that away. We're going to pay for it either now or we're going to pay for it later, as Congresswoman Brown was saying. It's less to pay on this side and ensure that everyone has access to the services that they need to keep them healthy and to keep them from developing those catastrophic illnesses. I want to talk a little bit about what the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and the Congressional Asian American Caucus have done in crafting this health care bill. Congresswoman Fudge is right. We didn't start just before the bill was passed. We actually started before the debate began in the Congress. We developed benchmarks. We call ourselves the Tri-Caucus. We decided very early that insurance would never be enough for our communities that have been left out of the health care mainstream for so long and that health equity had to be a goal of any bill that we passed, so the Tri-Caucus worked together. We worked very hard. We met with House and Senate leadership. We met with the White House several times to ensure that the benchmarks that we set for our communities were going to be met, so that, really, this bill would provide access to quality health care for all Americans--not just a few, but for all Americans. We hear a lot about the consumer protections: The fact that children cannot be denied insurance if they have a preexisting disease, which is important to us; The fact that our young people can stay on our insurance until 26 years old; The fact that there are no lifetime and annual limits, and all of those important provisions that we hear about all of the time. But I want to talk a little bit about some of the health equity provisions, because this bill prevents discrimination. It defines what a health disparity is and a health disparity population, and it makes sure that all of the research in the bill, all of the task forces, all of the institutes, the comparative effectiveness research, all of those include monitoring and having a goal of eliminating health disparities in their mandate. There are incentive payments to providers if they can demonstrate that they have eliminated health disparities. Health disparities actually cost this Nation. In a study done by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, they've shown where, just over a 3-year period, $1.24 trillion was lost in direct and indirect costs just because of health disparities. We expanded, of course, the coverage in the consumer protections-- Medicaid expansion, which we really urge all of the States to provide for their citizens who are at 133 percent or under the Federal poverty level. The territories, despite the vote to repeal our funding, that funding still stands. My territory is enjoying a great increase in funding. We have not lifted the cap. We are not getting State-like treatment, but for the very first time, many of the territories may be able to cover at least up to 100 percent of the Federal poverty level with the substantial increases that the Affordable Care Act provided. We also have limited funding to set up exchanges, and the consumer protections and capacity building grants applied to the territories, which really need them. We included the Indian Health Improvement Act. We expanded community health centers and school-based health centers within the bill. We provide for community health worker grants. In communities that have not had the benefit of robust health care services, it's important that people that they trust in the community can help them understand this law and help to make that connection to the health services that will be provided. That's what the community health worker grants would do. They have community transformation grants. We tried to include a program that we've been working on called Health Empowerment Zones. We didn't quite get that, but we have funding for communities where those health services have not been available, to be able to prepare that community and to begin to build some infrastructure so that every community can have the benefits of this bill. We mandated that not-for-profit hospitals create a community health needs assessment every 3 years, and we created a Community Preventive Services Task Force. Having community-focused, community-developed, community-driven, community-implemented programs is where we're going to see the biggest improvement in health care, especially in communities of color and communities that are poor and our rural communities in our territory. The bill ensures that Federal health care programs collect and report data on race, ethnicity, sex, primary language, and disability status. We address health care disparities in Medicaid and SCHIP by standardizing data collection requirements. Again, in comparative effectiveness, we were able to make sure that that research will include racial and ethnic subgroups, women and people with co-morbidities. We establish a National Health Care Workforce Commission that requires reporting. For the very first time in this country, we have a national strategy at prevention, and we have a national strategy to eliminate health disparities, for the very first time, all from the Affordable Care Act. We increase the National Health Service Corps and loan repayment programs, expanded Centers of Excellence, and we made sure to invest in Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions. We're going to have to greatly expand our health care workforce on all levels to take care of the 30-plus million new people who will be coming into the system, and we want to make sure that that workforce reflects the diversity of our country, and that the now underrepresented minorities have a chance to get some of those jobs and be able to provide some of those services for the communities that they come from. We provide support for cultural competence training for health care professionals, grants to the health care workforce, to provide culturally and linguistically appropriate services. We require the dissemination of information adapted to a variety of cultural, linguistic, and educational backgrounds so that everyone can understand what it is we're trying to do and be able to access the services. Mental health and substance abuse parity was included. We included dental services in the basic package for children. We would have wished that it could be in the basic package for all people, but we were able to get it in children. We establish a prevention and public health fund, and I know the Republican leadership has been trying to repeal that fund, to deplete that fund, but this is an attempt to change the paradigm of how we deal with health care in this country, not to just be dealing with the acute, expensive, long-term care, but to focus on prevention. An ounce of prevention is still worth a pound of cure. We strengthened and expanded the Office of Women's Health. We elevated the Office of Minority Health to the Office of the Secretary. We've created new Offices of Minority Health in the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service, SAMHSA, and other agencies where it's really critical that we have that input that really zeros in on the health care of the minorities who are the people who are really underserved and create some of the costs that we're trying to reduce. If we can take care of all of the people in this country, the costs will go down. We elevated the Center on Minority and Health Disparities to a national institute at NIH, and they're doing great work with all of our universities across the country. What we've come to understand is that when you're dealing with health, especially when you're looking from a community level, you can't just focus on disease. You have to look at the environment that people live in. And for the very first time we have a National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council headed by our Surgeon General. That council brings about 17 agencies of government together to plan and to look at the impact of their programs, policies, initiatives that help, and to really plan how we can create an environment in our communities and in our country that supports wellness and supports prevention and supports good health, so that people can walk in their neighborhoods, so that they could have fresh fruit and vegetables in their neighborhoods and other things like that so we can deal with the obesity problem, so we can deal with smoking cessation, and all the things that contribute to poor health and really increase the costs. When we look at communities and focus on community prevention, that's where we're going to reduce the cost of health care. So, I wanted to just say a word about Medicare because I am so tired of hearing about $500 billion taken out of--cut from Medicare. Now, that's a misinterpretation of what really happened. That $500 billion comes from cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in part. I was reading in an article in the paper just today that Medicare could probably save $70 billion just in 1 year, in 2010, by really zeroing in on waste, fraud, and abuse and implementing some of the recommendations of the General Accountability Office--they could save $70 billion in 1 year. Multiply that by ten, I think it comes up to $700 billion, which is more than the $500 billion that the Republicans keep saying we took out of Medicare. We didn't. We made payments fairer, remember, by making the payments more equitable across the board. So we may have lowered some of the reimbursement rates for Medicare Advantage, but we were able to still keep some of the better, more effective Medicare Advantage programs in place. We began to close the doughnut hole. We took some of that money to close the doughnut hole so that over the 10-year period there will be no time that a senior or a person with disability will have to pay the full cost of their medication. We are providing preventive care with no copayments and an annual physical exam with no copayment. And in addition to all of that, with that $500 billion, we extended the life of Medicare by 8 years. So I just want to clear that up. We did not take $500 billion out of Medicare. We used it to reinvest into Medicare, to make it stronger, to provide more services and more benefits for the beneficiaries. Of course, health care reform will take an investment, but it will reduce costs over time. We'll reduce disparities, we'll have better end-of-life care with planning by individuals and their families, we'll have that community-based prevention, obesity prevention, smoking cessation and health policy and every policy that I talked about. And all of that will reduce the cost of health care. I just want to close by just reading a few statements from some physicians. I'm a primary care physician, a family physician myself. And Medscape today published an article from a primary care round table. And I know the doctors who spoke here said many, many things. I just want to quote a sentence or two from several of them. Charles P. Vega, M.D. At the end of his statement he says: The Supreme Court decision breathes life into the health care reform movement at a critical time, and we need to take advantage of this fortune, not only to implement the most important parts of the Affordable Care Act, but also to start building towards the next logical steps in health care reform, beginning with an efficient public option that emphasizes smart, quality care. And Dr. Robert W. Morrow says: And now we're in a regulatory space where the health of the public could take precedence over the profits of the commercial health plans. And why not? Dr. Roy M. Poses, M.D., says of the Supreme Court ruling: The news is not bad. We're probably, on balance, somewhat better off with some health care insurance reform than none. However, we're still a long way from meaningfully addressing concentration and abuse of power in health care. There will be no rest for the weary bloggers of the Health Care Renewal. Another doctor, Dr. Li, says: My take is that the plan is not as good as what's being touted by the left, but it's far better than what's being said by the right. And Dr. Robert M. Centor says: Clearly, upholding the individual mandate allows the U.S. to approach universal health care. Universal health care is such a worthy goal that we must applaud this victory. Dr. Mark Williams says: For me the Supreme Court ruling on the ACA implies at least a period of relative clarity and less uncertainty, despite much political rhetoric. In short, we now have some time for planning and innovation. And he also says: Healthcare is too precious to be considered a business or a marketplace commodity. Whatever system we choose must commit itself to the needs of the population and the global community, not simply to our own personal needs. It must be based on needs and not simply on service expansion. And lastly, from my own American Academy of Family Practice, they say: Having the mandate upheld is consistent with what has been AAFP policy for over 20 years. We have advocated for health care coverage for everyone and access to at least basic health services, including good primary care with prevention and chronic illness care. You can argue whether the mandate is the only means to get there, but at least in the analyses that I've seen, it was one of the best identified ways to get everyone covered. And so, the American people, when you ask them about the different provisions of the law, an overwhelming majority really supports the provisions that we've been able to provide for them in health care reform. Many physicians are touting the Supreme Court decision and the law. I think, if we can all forget about the political rhetoric of repeal and just work together to make sure that it's implemented in the best way possible, we will really be doing what the American people have sent us here to do. With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. After 20 years of being fully and fairly included in the surface transportation bills, what is being voted on today cuts funding to the smaller territories by $10 million. And while I am glad our sister territory of Puerto Rico as well as the States and District of Columbia are level-funded, it just seems grossly unfair that only the United States Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the Commonwealth of the Marianas are singled out for cuts. Why cut $10 million? Or it could have been spread out across the entire bill and not raised a blip in the 50 States, the District, or Puerto Rico. But for us small economies, it's a big blow. That being said, it could have been worse. This body would have made our funding discretionary and, therefore, not secure. So while I decry the cuts, I have to thank the Senate for hearing our pleas and keeping our funding in the trust fund. After all of the time, though, that we have waited for even this 2- year, 3-month infrastructure and job-creating transportation bill and knowing the need to keep college affordable and reauthorize flood insurance, I cannot, in good conscience, oppose the bill before us today. But what is being done to the territories is unfair and discriminatory. And since it makes so little difference in the overall bill, it seems deliberately and unnecessarily punitive to us loyal Americans who serve and shed our blood just like every other in the defense and love of this, our country. Fairness would demand that it be restored.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Madam Speaker, while we have decried bullying in our schools, unfortunately it's going on right here in this House. Tomorrow, the Issa resolution holding our Attorney General in contempt is to come to the floor, and I urge my colleagues to put an end to this totally politically inspired attack on Attorney General Holder and President Obama's administration. Thousands of documents have been produced, many interviews have been held, and Mr. Holder has testified before Congress nine times on the operation Fast and Furious, which was started in Arizona no less, and under President Bush's administration. Democrats were not allowed one witness or a hearing that would have made this a fair, balanced, and likely closed investigation. At the end of this extreme, unprecedented, partisan attack on the current administration, which is what it's all about and what can only be called a political witch hunt, what you will find in Attorney General Eric Holder is an intelligent, competent, patriotic, dedicated, and humble public servant who is upholding the integrity of his office and serving this country with honor. Madam Speaker, I urge the House not to sully the history and decorum of this body with this first-ever vote to hold a sitting Attorney General in contempt.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago in Citizens United, the Supreme Court overturned two decades of precedents to strike down the ban on corporate expenditures in Federal campaigns. This opened the floodgates and allows corporations to spend unlimited funds, so now money comes from a handful of billionaires looking to wield their influence, and no one has to know who they are. Campaigns like the one in Wisconsin and many others are being bought with that money instead of being decided by an honestly and factually informed public, as they should be. Romney's secretly funded PAC alone spent $46 million before Memorial Day to sway your opinion, and it will continue to spend even more. We have to end the influence of the secret money on our elections. That's why I am a cosponsor of the DISCLOSE Act, which will restore accountability in our elections. Americans want and deserve a more open and honest political process. Republicans blocked that bill in 2010. The GOP needs to listen to Americans and bring the DISCLOSE Act to the floor. The American public has a right to know who is paying for campaign ads that they will be swamped with this election cycle, and they need to know sooner rather than later.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, there are few things that anger me more than when Members of this body claim that a piece of legislation will accomplish something that it simply will not accomplish. That is certainly the case with H.R. 3541--a bill that my friends on the other side of the aisle claim will prevent sex-selection abortions and will ensure that the United States does not become a supposed ``safe-haven'' for women seeking an abortion based on the sex of the pregnancy. The issue of sex-selection is a very real issue in different nations around the globe. However, even leading international health experts in this field agree that the solution does not lie in criminalizing the practice, which would only keep it behind closed doors. The solution lies in addressing the social, economic, political and cultural factors that create, sustain and exacerbate sex inequality in the first place; the very inequalities that lead to sex-selection in the first place. Unfortunately, this bill will not achieve any of the claims from my friends on the other side of the aisle and this will certainly will nothing to reduce sex discrimination and gender inequality. What this bill will do, however, is to exacerbate the unfortunate impacts of sex discrimination and gender inequality by leading to greater stigmatization of women and especially Asian-American women who exercise their choice and control over their reproductive lives. And, there is nothing about that suggests or reflects any intention or hope of fighting back against gender discrimination. What this bill also will do is to restrict access to legal and safe abortion services, violate the very-important doctor-patient relationship and needlessly threaten healthcare providers with civil and criminal liability unless they report any suspicions they have about a woman's reason for exercising her right as a human being to control her body. It is evident that this legislation has nothing to do with empowering women here or around the globe nor does it have anything to do with ensuring that women who are faced with a very, very difficult decision have access to the safest care possible. More evident is that this bill is just another attempt to challenge Roe v. Wade and achieve an outright ban on all abortion services. As a Member of Congress and a physician who has worked tirelessly to eliminate all health disparities those along racial and ethnic, geographic and gender lines I cannot and will not support any policy that I know will not improve the health, wellness and thus life opportunities of those who often are marginalized and on the down side of opportunity, access and privilege. And so, I cannot and will not support any bill that will not improve the lives of women and girls by expanding their reliable access to safe and appropriate comprehensive health care--including reproductive health care and by ensuring gender equality across all facets of their lives, from at work to in the classroom. And so, I strongly encourage my colleagues not to support H.R. 3541. The issue of sex-selection is a very serious challenge, and serious challenges warrant serious, effective solutions. This bill certainly is not that! We have a chance to stop in its tracks a bill that could worsen the health disparities that affect women, and that give rise to unsafe, often-lethal back-alley abortions. Let's stop this bill; let's do so now; and let's go back to the table and develop a thoughtful bill that addresses the root causes the sex discrimination and gender inequalities that leave millions of talented girls and women on the downside of opportunity and hope.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, there are so many reasons that I rise in strong support of this bipartisen legislation. Not only will it modernize the FDA review process of new and generic prescription drugs, biosimilars and medical devices, and ensure that Americans have reliable access to new, safe and innovative medicines and devices, as well as to affordable generic drugs, but it also promotes greater equity and safety in the development and use of prescription drugs for children--a level of importance that cannot be stressed enough. I strongly support this legislation because it prioritizes and protects the health and welfare of consumers, while also being fair and just to the prescription drug and medical device industries. And, this legislation includes incentives for the development of new antibiotics to treat both life-threatening infections as well as those that if not treated, snowball into life-threatening situations. Finally, I rise in strong support of this legislation because it will take significant steps forward to address our nation's ever-growing challenge with drug shortages. And so, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me with their strong support of this legislation so that we may achieve what we have long hoped to accomplish: reforming and strengthening many of the Food and Drug Administration's key programs which--together--will ensure that Americans have greater and more timely access to safe, affordable therapies and medical devices to treat and manage their conditions, and improve their overall health, quality of life and thus life opportunities.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, although, H.R. 3310 is intended to streamline the Federal Communication Commission's reporting requirements. There are concerns that FCC's statutory authority on data collection could be affected and certain pertinent reporting requirements could be eliminated. H.R. 3310 would consolidate eight separate reports of the FCC into a single comprehensive report in order to reduce the reporting burdens on the FCC while encouraging the agency to analyze competition in the marketplace as a whole. I believe that this bill is not only unnecessary but harmful to the process especially since under Chairman Genachowski many reforms have been made to address the issues the Republicans have indicated they want to fix. While the FCC has sufficient existing authority to collect data for statutorily required reports, the language contained in Sec. 4 could be construed as denying the Commission its ordinary data collection authority with respect to certain provisions of the bill. While I support the general intent of the bill to streamline FCC reporting requirements, I did not support it at committee level in its present form and no significant changes were made to improve the bill before it was brought to the House floor. I urge my colleagues not support this bill.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to submit my remarks in opposition to a Republican bill that weakens protections for violence against women and in support of the bipartisan Senate bill.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, to say I rise in strong opposition to this bill would be an understatement. In addition to the other egregious cuts, this bill would eliminate the critically needed $6.3 billion in funding that the U.S. territories' Medicaid programs receive under the Affordable Care Act. More than that, it sends a clear message to Americans in the territories that while they are American enough to defend this Nation during times of war, they are not American enough for this Nation to protect and preserve their health and well-being. This bill is un- American and it is unjust. I ask my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this terrible reconciliation bill. Mr. Speaker, to say that I rise today in strong opposition to this bill would be an understatement. The truth is that there are so many elements included in this bill that warrant everyone's strong opposition that the list reads like a dishonor roll: the attacks on Medicare and CHIP; the elimination of funding for the Exchanges that will expand health insurance to more than 30 million uninsured Americans; and the repeal of the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which expands access to preventive health care services to millions of Americans who--as a result--would have improved overall health and well-being. The list goes on for far too long. But, it gets worse because this bill also includes a provision to eliminate the critically needed 6.3 billion dollars in funding that the U.S. Territories' Medicaid programs received under the Affordable Care Act--a funding influx that, two years ago, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle and in both chambers deemed legitimate and necessary. And, if that is not bad enough, this bill also bumps our FMAP down from 55 to 50 percent--a percentage that every expert has agreed is far too low and unjust, given the territories' income, poverty and cost of living numbers. I will call it like I see it: it bullies the most vulnerable Americans in the territories whose medical needs surpass their financial resources; and this bill sends the very clear message to Americans in the territories that while they are ``American enough'' to defend this nation and its honor during times of war, they are not ``American enough'' for this Nation to help protect and preserve their health, health care and thus well-being. It is un-American; it is unjust; it is an unnecessary embarrassment; and it must not pass. We have one last chance to do the right thing; let's do it and not pass this bill.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Member may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on the topic of this Special Order.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. I would like to again thank the Democratic leader for giving us this time. Mr. Speaker, tonight the Congressional Black Caucus will use the hour to speak on something that's always at the core of what we fight for and what we legislate for and what we legislate to end, and which is always at the root of much of what we come to the floor every Monday night to talk about, the persistence of inequality and injustice in our country. It is fitting then that as we do so this evening we call to mind and honor a staunch champion for justice, attorney John Payton, who at the time of his death on March 22 was the sixth president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Tonight I'm joined by several of my colleagues, and I begin by yielding such time as she might consume to the former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, a leader and one of our strongest fighters for justice and equality in this country, the gentlewoman from Oakland, California, Congresswoman Barbara Lee.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Lee. You reminded me that I had the honor of traveling with you to Geneva for that U.N. conference that focused on the inequalities and the injustice that exist in far too many areas of the world with respect to voter participation. And as we heard from so many marginalized communities in different countries, it was really sad that when it came for my time to speak, I spoke from the experience of the United States and the lack of voter participation; the lack of full representation of the District of Columbia, the capital of the United States; and the inability of the people of the Territories to vote for the President, our Commander-in-Chief.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you for adding that. Before I yield to the Congresswoman from the District of Columbia, I would like to yield such time as she might consume to the gentlelady from Texas, also a very strong voice for justice and equality in this country, not just in her own district, but for Americans and for people across the world, the Congresswoman from Houston, Texas, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Lee, for that very strong and impassioned and very well-deserved tribute to John Payton this evening. And as I yield to the gentlelady from the District of Columbia, let me, on behalf of the people of the Virgin Islands who celebrate emancipation on July 3, wish the residents of the District of Columbia happy Emancipation Day.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. It was wonderful to have you here, a close friend, a close colleague of John Payton's, to give us a more in-depth history not only of his accomplishments but of the man, himself, and we thank you for joining us as yourself a very strong fighter for justice and equality, a legal scholar like John Payton who has also devoted her life, like he did, to justice and equality. I want to just close by saying a few words myself about John Payton and the work that we still have yet to do. It was at the retreat of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation even as we were remembering, eulogizing, and coming to terms with the loss of our chairman and colleague and friend, Don Payne, that we learned of John's passing. It was distressing and disconcerting to think that at this time when we need strong fighters for equality and justice more than ever, that not only Donald Payne, but now John Payton would also be taken away from us. But we are blessed that we have their legacies, the bodies of their work and contributions and that standing on them and their inspiration we can be strengthened to continue the fight that they led so well. Later than many of my colleagues, I first came to know John Payton personally in 2003 when he was at the firm of what was then Wilmer, Cutler and Pickering, now known as Wilmer Hale. At that time, as you heard, he was the lead counsel for the 2003 University of Michigan affirmative action cases. In the end, the Supreme Court upheld the law school's affirmative action policy in a related case. But I also came to know John Payton and his wife, Gay McDougall, as you heard at the conference that I attended with Congresswoman Barbara Lee, a U.N. conference in Geneva, on voter participation which Barbara was the director of that conference. But John's work in civil rights, as you heard, began from his undergraduate time at Pomona College and continued when at Harvard Law School he worked with students injured in the race riots-related violence during the Boston school-busing controversy. Many students at the law schools at Harvard, Howard, and Georgetown where he was a visiting professor at various times were fortunate to have the benefit of his experience and his expertise. He was active in many domestic and international causes. Along with his wife and international human rights lawyer, Gay McDougall, he was one of the international monitors in South Africa in the very first election in which South African blacks could vote at the time Nelson Mandela was elected President. The Legal Defense Fund said of him that he was a guiding light, a brilliant advocate, a mentor and a teacher who believed that American democracy thrives when it embraces all of our voices. President Barack Obama called him ``a true champion of equality,'' and said that he helped to protect civil rights in the classroom and at the ballot box. So as we honor John Payton and his legacy, we recommit ourselves to continue his and our fight for justice. Last week, I participated in the 2012 National Environmental Justice Conference and training program where administration officials, researchers, and advocates from all over the country convened here in Washington, D.C. It was distressing to hear of the communities in this country which today are suffering health impacts and still in 2012 have to fight to be free of polluting industries and for clean air and water. These persistent environmental injustices cry out for justice. The case of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was killed by a Neighborhood Watch volunteer as he, Trayvon, walked home, has not only aroused sympathy for the family but justified anger over his senseless killing. It has also revived the long and shameful history of racial profiling in this country and our flagrant and reckless use of guns and the gun culture which so many people promote here. Trayvon's death is tragic in and of itself; but it's sadly a story that has been and continues to be told in countless communities across our Nation. Our children and our families cry out for justice. The wealth gap continues to widen dangerously in this country. According to the PEW Foundation, the wealth of white families here is 20 times that of African Americans and 18 times that of Latinos. The Health Policy Institute of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies has issued several recent reports that showed how poverty, including extreme poverty, and persistent segregation create health, education, economic, and other disparities. To quote Angus Deaton of Princeton University in a recent paper: There are grounds to be concerned about the rapid expansion in inequality at the very top of the income distribution in the United States; this is not only an injustice in itself, but it poses a risk of spawning injustices in education, in health and in governance. The increasing income inequality in this country also cries out for justice. I could go on, but let me just end with health. Every year there are over 80,000 excess deaths in people of color, deaths that could and should and must be prevented. Every minority group suffers some health disparity: African Americans and American Indians and Alaskan Natives more than most. Many of these deaths and the countless disproportionate disabilities could be prevented with the continued implementation of the Affordable Care Act. It is health injustice that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called the most shocking and inhumane. The countless and seemingly endless years of these tragic health iniquities and the millions of people who have suffered because of them also cry out for justice. It is for ending these and other injustices that John Payton dedicated his life. In an article in the Civil Rights Monitor, he said: The problems of race and inequality in our country have proven to be enduring and deep-seated in nature. But we must recognize that this is a marathon and not a race if we are to find solutions that work. We are grateful for the leg of the marathon that he ran and the progress that he made in this race while he was with us. To his wife, Gay; his sisters, Janette Oliver and Susan Grissom; his brother, Glen Spears; the NAACP Legal Defense Fund; and his many colleagues and friends, I join my CBC colleagues in offering our sincere condolences and those on behalf of the people of the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong and proud support of the Congressional Black Caucus' budget, which builds on the President's and the Democratic budget, is fiscally responsible, and restores America's promise and invests in our future. As a physician and chair of the Health Braintrust, I am particularly pleased with the investment we make in health. The CBC budget provides an additional $10 billion in 2013, which protects Medicare and Medicaid, and which fully funds the Affordable Care Act, the Minority AIDS Initiative, and the AIDS Drug Assistance Program. It supports the Office of Minority Health. Finally, it provides adequate funding for the new institute at NIH. We provide robust funding for important prevention and public health programs like the block grant, maternal and child health, oral health programs, and community-centric efforts to address the socioeconomic determinants of health. We also increase funding for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, for the training of underrepresented minorities for the health workforce and, for the first time, for health facilities improvements and construction. Health care is a right. The CBC, through this budget, ensures that all Americans will enjoy that right. We make a strong investment in health and much more, and we still reduce the deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years. I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to add any extraneous material on the subject matter of the Special Order.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, soon we will be called upon to vote on a budget for 2013. Budgets are supposed to be a statement of our values and our vision, and this is the case with the Congressional Black Caucus budget. The values that we support in our budget are American values. As it says in the title, it restores America's promise and invests in our future. And at this time, I would like to yield to the person who leads us in developing the Congressional Black Caucus budget and who has done so for several years, one of the senior members on the Budget Committee, Congressman Bobby Scott of Virginia.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congressman Scott. Thank you for your leadership over all of these years in developing such a responsible budget. The CBC is proud to offer that as an alternative again this year. Now I would like to yield to Congresswoman Marcia Fudge of Ohio, who is a member of the Education and the Workforce Committee. She is a strong advocate for education and closing the achievement gap and for many of the safety net programs that we protect in this budget.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congresswoman Fudge, and thank you for your strong defense of programs for children, for our seniors, and for families across this country. I would now like to yield such time as he might consume to Congressman Danny Davis, a strong fighter for health equity, for justice in our criminal justice system. He is a valued member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you, Congressman Davis. I'd like to just say a few words about the Congressional Black Caucus budget. I'm in strong support of this budget. As I said, it's a responsible budget that is a statement of our values and priorities; and as the title says, it restores America's promise to invest in our future. Our budget, as Congressman Scott said, builds upon the President's budget, and it would ensure that our children, our veterans, and seniors are protected and adequately taken care of. We invest in education and health care as well as in research and innovation. Our budget provides revenue by enacting tax measures that are fair, that close loopholes, and that protect tax cuts for hardworking, middle class families while protecting vital safety nets that help the poor, and it provides them with stepping stones out of poverty. Those safety nets that we protect are, for example, Social Security; Medicare; Medicaid--a critical program; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, TANF; and many, many others. It does all of that while reducing the deficit by an additional $3.4 trillion compared to the President's budget. Our budget stands as a direct contrast to the Republican Ryan budget. The Ryan budget begins at the outset by breaking the hard-fought agreement on caps set in the Budget Control Act in 2011. If they can't keep their word on something that they forced an agreement on, then what will they keep their word on? So the Republican budget begins across-the-board cuts at 5.4 percent in 2013. They do not cut any defense spending, as agreed to in the Budget Control Act; but in 2014, they would reduce those caps 19 percent below the agreed-to cap in non- defense spending over 10 years. And I guess they know that the Supreme Court arguments made by those 26 States that began today against the Affordable Care Act are not going to win the day, that the Court will uphold the constitutionality of the law, and so the Republican budget would repeal the Affordable Care Act. Just take a look at what Republicans take out of health care. They would cut funding for the Indian Health Service by 19 percent beginning in 2014. That would greatly diminish access to health care for the American Indians who already suffer disproportionately from many diseases and, as a result, who have a very low life expectancy compared to the white population. In the Republican budget, there are cuts to funding for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services which would make it very difficult for that agency to meet its responsibilities in overseeing these critical programs. There are also cuts to the Food and Drug Administration, which would reverse what Democrats were able to do to strengthen protections in food and medicines, and cutting back on those programs would put the American public at an increased risk. While in this difficult economic climate the President's budget managed to fund NIH at its current level, the Republican Ryan budget would jeopardize new research by cutting that budget; and that research that would lead to innovations in medicine and improve lives would be jeopardized. In addition, they cut WIC and turn SNAP into a block grant, which weakens their ability to help those who increasingly find themselves food insecure as the gap between the rich and poor has widened and incomes have plummeted. And it cuts the Republicans' favorite target, the EPA, which would reduce our investments in public health and harm our ability to protect our public from air and water pollution and land contamination. On the other hand, our budget, the CBC budget, which is always a very responsible budget--responsible to the American people and fiscally responsible while providing more deficit reduction than the Republican Ryan budget--still makes important investments that are critical to a strong future, including in health care. First of all, our budget upholds the Affordable Care Act and fully funds it, but it takes it one step further by creating a public health insurance option that by itself saves almost $103 billion in health care costs over the next decade. It adds $10 billion to health care funding in the 2013 budget, and that $10 billion more robustly funds the following important programs, such as the AIDS drug assistance programs, which have been underfunded for years, causing States to drop persons from their rosters with HIV and AIDS or reducing the coverage, reducing the benefits, and causing increasingly long waiting lists. It also increases funding for Ryan White, the Minority AIDS Initiative, and prevention activities for HIV, for STDs, for TB, and hepatitis. Our budget funds the Office of Minority Health, which was expanded and strengthened under the Affordable Care Act to improve health equity. We expand and pay for oral health programs, for health care facilities improvements and construction. We increase funding for the maternal and child health in the Preventive Health Block Grant. We fund the Physician-Scientist Training program, which brings underrepresented minorities into health care careers both in the practice of medicine, as providers, and in research. We provide additional funding for substance abuse and mental health services administration. And we finally provide adequate funding for the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities at NIH. We also restore funding for the REACH program, a very important program that assists racial and ethnic minority communities to develop programs and unique approaches to health care just uniquely for those communities. We fund many, many other health-related programs and services. And still, with all of that, we reduce that deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years. Those health provisions, as well as those in education, in research and innovation, and in the protection of the safety net programs and tax fairness, those in the CBC budget make it one that is clearly a statement of our values and priorities, a statement of America's values, values that everyone in this body should support. At this time, I would like to yield again to our leader on the budget in the CBC, Congressman Bobby Scott.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Thank you for summarizing that for us and for pointing out the very important point that, in order to keep those tax cuts for the millionaires, those programs that so many people in this country, the poor and the middle class, depend on will be cut. That's a tradeoff that this country should not be taking and we do not support. So we are very pleased to present our budget. As I said, and as Congressman Scott said, this is a very responsible budget that not only invests in the future and keeps America's promise to its people, but it saves money, $3.4 trillion over 10 years to reduce the deficit. With that, we ask for the support of our colleagues, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN

Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we laid to rest a young man, Deniel Brow who was killed after he turned away from an argument--shot as he began to walk away. Every time our children are out, not only in the Virgin Islands but across the country, and certainly as we now see in Florida, we worry that they will be injured or killed in some senseless act of violence. In the case of young Traynor Martin, he was not killed because of an argument with a peer which would have been bad enough, it appears he was pursued by an adult, allegedly, a self appointed overly aggressive neighborhood watch person who seemed to be just looking for trouble, and who even after being told by dispatchers to leave the boy alone pursued him and in the midst of his pleas for help heard on the 911 tape, shoots and kills him. I am glad the Justice Department has begun its investigation and I thank our colleague Corrine Brown for getting involved and being the strong advocate she is on behalf of the grieving Martin family and his community. But you know the blame for this incident goes beyond the shooter. All who have engaged in violent rhetoric against racial and ethnic minorities, who have been contributing to the poisonous environment in which we now find ourselves in this country and who have been encouraging this kind of vigilante activity are also responsible for young Traynor's death and his family's loss. I hope this incident will be a wake-up call and have us come to our senses and sense of fairness, justice and community--the kind of community that looks out for and takes care of its children, not kills them or fosters an atmosphere where this kind of action is encouraged.