Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman talks about creating a healthy business climate. I don't know how we're creating a healthy business climate by passing a bill that makes it easier and more likely that U.S. corporations will ship U.S. jobs overseas. After more than 200 days in the majority, House Republicans have passed no bills, none, no bills to create jobs, moving instead on job destroying legislation that could cost up to nearly 2 million jobs, with more to come. This week, to make matters worse, we're taking up this legislation that will encourage the shipping of jobs overseas and a bill that will weaken the middle class. Instead of creating jobs and strengthening the middle class and protecting workers' rights, the Republicans are making it easier for corporations to send American jobs overseas. And it allows employers to punish their employees for simply exercising their rights to organize, to demand better benefits and safer working conditions, and to ensure a full day's pay for an honest day's work. I mean, that's what this bill does. You know, in 2000, the National Labor Relations Board was able to force a company to bring jobs back to the United States from Mexico, as the company was charged with shipping jobs to Mexico in retaliation against workers seeking to organize a union. Under this Republican bill, American workers would lose this protection. Again, their plan for the economy is all about lowering the standard of living, lessening the quality of life for American workers, while protecting those who are most fortunate in this country, those who head up the big companies. We should be debating on this floor today the President's job bill. If my Republican friends don't want to vote for it, they don't have to; but that's the legislation that should be brought before the Members of this Congress today, not this bill, a bill that punishes American workers. Enough. You've been punishing American workers since you took the majority. Enough is enough. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Speaker, we should be talking here on the floor and debating and considering an infrastructure bill to put people back to work. We should be taking up the entirety of the President's jobs proposal that he delivered in a speech a week ago. We should be taking up things that will actually help this economy and put people back to work. Instead, we are dealing with a bill that will make it easier and more likely for U.S. corporations to ship U.S. jobs overseas. And this is a bill that creates a new race to the bottom for American workers' rights, wages, benefits, and working conditions, and it is bad for this economy. Why do my Republican friends continue to insist that the only way to deal with our economic problems is to lower the standard of living and the quality of life for American workers? Why are all the tough choices being made on the backs of American workers? We can do much better in this country. We need to be focusing on jobs, not on this stuff. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I remind my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that it's September. When are you going to bring a jobs bill to the floor? When are you going to bring legislation that's going to help put people back to work during this difficult economy? At this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at the end of August, I was part of a weeklong fact-finding delegation to Colombia coordinated by the Washington Office on Latin America. Our first stop was in Medellin. Hailed during 2005 to 2008 as the so- called ``Medellin Miracle,'' we now know that the miracle was more illusion than reality, created by the iron fist of paramilitary leader Diego Murillo, alias Don Berna. He controlled all criminal activity in the poorest districts, or comunas, as they're known, that surround central Medellin. Since his 2008 extradition to the United States, hell has returned to the comunas, as neo-paramilitary drug lords fight for control of drug trafficking, extortion, and other criminal activity. But the ``miracle'' wasn't a total illusion. During those years of relative calm, the municipal government, under Mayor Sergio Fajardo, and his successor, current Mayor Alonso Salazar, made significant investments in youth organizations, education, and basic human services in the poorest neighborhoods. In greater Medellin, investments resulted in public parks, recreational spaces, culture, and a new public transit system. These changes, large and small, have helped civil society to better weather and confront the current explosion of violence that keeps Medellin in the ranks of Latin America's most violent cities. There are an estimated 3,800 or more gang members in Medellin. And about 70 percent of their ranks are made up of young people between the ages of 11 and 17. In the past 2 years, nearly 2,000 young people between the ages of 11 and 25 have been killed. We spent an entire day meeting with people and youth organizations in three of the city's most violent districts, Comunas 13, 8, and 5. Our guides were the dedicated staff of Fundacion Mi Sangre. They introduced us to John Jaime Sanchez, the director of Son Bata, an Afro-Colombian group that has achieved international fame by using music to help Comuna 13's young people find alternatives to violence. We visited a local YMCA and its director, Alexandra Castillon. The YMCA has long served as an anchor and neutral space in Comuna 13. There we met leaders from Hip Hop Red Elite, Hip Hoppers for Peace, and the Kolacho School, a music training school named in memory of a young boy killed in Comuna 13. The groups reach young people through the use of music and dance, helping them become leaders. These youth then use their art to reach others in their schools and on the streets with the message of nonviolence. We went across town to Casa de la Cultura, one of the few neutral spaces in Comuna 8. We met students in youth groups called Diafora, La Villa, AK-47, New Dance and others. Their determination and enthusiasm to create a better future were undeniable. Rap group AK-47 joined with students playing classical music. They put on a stunning rap program against gang violence. I could have listened to their powerful words and music all day. We ended the day sitting on the ground above a small park in Comuna 5 talking with more than 20 youth leaders about their daily lives and how they use art to promote human rights, recapture historic memory, and create a better community. I told them they should run for office because Medellin's future depended on their leadership. The next day, our delegation returned to Comuna 5, this time with the Catholic Church and the mayor's adviser on peace and reconciliation. We met former and current gang members. We heard impassioned stories about how they want to leave the gangs and the endless violence. It's not an easy choice. They fear retaliation and not being able to support their families. Many people in Medellin are helping them lay down their arms, but their futures are dangerous and limited. They also lack confidence in the police, some of whom are allied with one faction or another in the gang wars. These youth put themselves at risk for advocating alternatives to violence and envisioning a future far different from the reality that surrounds them. They deserve our respect and our support--not just with funding but by increasing their visibility and their legitimacy. Rarely on my trips to Colombia have I left the place with such strong and positive feelings; and after spending time in the most dangerous areas of the city, I came away with a sense of hope. I often speak of what's going wrong in Colombia and the many problems that need to be addressed. In Medellin I found many examples of what is going right.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, Sunday is the 10th anniversary of 9/11, the day the world changed. Two hundred and seven names are remembered in the Boston Public Garden 9/11 Memorial. Six were my constituents: Lynn Goodchild; Christopher Zarba, Jr.; Linda George; Robin Kaplan; Dianne Snyder; and Tara Creamer. Back then, Tony Blair challenged the world to use the unity created in the aftermath of those horrible attacks to create a ``community of good.'' To help the world's most vulnerable; those without schools, food, water, or work without dignity. We should reflect on how well we have responded to that challenge. We need to resolve to do better and make our country better, and to do more to heal the wounds of the world. On the first Sunday after 9/11, at an ecumenical service in Worcester, Massachusetts, I said our faith teaches us that love is stronger than hate. I still believe that. Now, more than ever, I believe that is the legacy of 9/11 most deserving of our political will and attention.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of this resolution. This Sunday our nation will commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001. It was a day that changed the way we live and view the world. It was a difficult time for all of us, but most difficult for the families, friends, relatives and communities who lost loved ones on that day. In the Boston Public Garden is a memorial to those in Massachusetts and New England who were lost on that day. At the entrance to the memorial is a simple plaque that reads: ``September 11, 2001: The people of Massachusetts will always remember our families, our husbands, wives, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, grandchildren, companions, friends and neighbors.'' Among the 207 names enshrined in the Public Garden 9/11 Memorial are six from my district in Massachusetts: Lynn Goodchild from Attleboro; Christopher Zarba, Jr., from Hopkinton; Linda George and Robin Kaplan from Westborough; Dianne Snyder from Westport; and Tara Creamer from Worcester. Today my thoughts and sympathies remain with their families, friends and loved ones. Many had children, some who are scarcely more than a decade old, others who are now teenagers or entering college. Each had vibrant lives and futures. We carry their memory in our hearts and our thoughts. I would like to insert the names of all the Massachusetts residents who perished on 9/11. I think about the future we are called upon to create and build in the next decade, before we reach the 20th Anniversary of 9/11. In the days following the attacks, then British Prime Minister Tony Blair called upon the world to use the sense of unity and human sympathy engendered by the attacks to create a ``community for good.'' While referencing the need to help the African nations reach their full potential, he focused on creating a common purpose to help the world's most vulnerable--the hungry, the poor, women and children; those without education, food, water or dignified work. I often reflect on how well we as Americans and the international community have responded to that challenge. I look at the famine in the Horn of Africa, and I can see where we have reached out to Ethiopians and Kenyans and helped them become stronger and more resilient to the shocks brought on by natural disasters and long-term droughts. These investments have kept millions from falling into famine, but there's still more to do. Right next door, in Somalia, a nation torn by decades of war and instability, tens of millions are facing famine, hardest hit are the children. We need to do more. I look next door in my own cities and towns, and I find families struggling to put food on the table, as we look at a period of extended unemployment and attacks against state and federal safety-net programs. We need to do more--and we need to do better. On the first Sunday following the 9/11 attacks, I was at an ecumenical service in Worcester, Massachusetts. I said then that ``as our faith teaches us: Love is stronger than hate.'' I still believe that. I still believe that peace-making--an end to poverty and oppression-- is a vital part of any global effort to end terrorism once and for all. I still believe that respecting the basic rights and dignity of all people is the best expression of who we are as America. And I still believe that this is the future we must recommit ourselves to creating and becoming a reality.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. The administration or Congress must prohibit any further funding for the DAS, including aid in the pipeline, until the Attorney General has completed all investigations and prosecutions, finds out who ordered these illegal activities, and President Santos has completely dismantled the current agency. I ask the committee chairman and ranking member to guarantee the Members of this House that no further aid will be provided to the DAS, and if that prohibition is not explicitly in this bill, that they will work with the Senate to include it in the final conference report. [From the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 2, 2011.] Colombia's Spreading Scandal The U.S. provided nearly $6 billion as part of Plan Colombia, an anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program. But did the money also pay for human rights abuses? The United States has long considered Colombia its strongest ally in Latin America. Over the last eight years it has provided the Colombian government with nearly $6 billion as part of Plan Colombia, an ambitious anti-narcotics and counterinsurgency program that has often been held up as a model of cooperation. But recent reports in the Washington Post suggest that U.S. assistance intended to combat drugs and terrorism was diverted to Colombian intelligence officials, who used it instead to spy on judges, journalists, politicians and union leaders. The Post also reported that the United States was aware of the spying, including illicit wiretapping. Whether that is true is unclear. State Department officials say no one at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota knew about the wiretaps. And President Juan Manuel Santos, who took office last year after the spying controversy erupted, has also denied that the United States had any role in the growing scandal. That will do little to quell questions about U.S. involvement, given Plan Colombia's troubled past. A United Nations human rights investigator concluded last year that a large number of Colombian military units were involved in shooting innocent young men and falsely identifying them as rebels in an effort to boost body counts. The extrajudicial killings were alleged to have been carried out by army units that had been vetted by the U.S. State Department and cleared to receive U.S. funding. And last year, then-U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield announced that all assistance to Colombia's Department of Administrative Security was being suspended indefinitely following disclosures in the Colombian media that indicated widespread spying abuses. Since then, Colombian authorities have arrested 28 officials, including former President Alvaro Uribe's chief of staff, in connection with the scandal. Colombia's government has vowed to dismantle the intelligence agency, and the Santos administration and attorney general have been courageous in investigating the scandal. Now it's up to the United States to move quickly to determine how much aid was provided to the agency and what it was used for. The U.S. must show the same resolve as Colombia has in ferreting out the truth.

Mr. McGOVERN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk just for a couple of minutes about a serious matter that relates to the Intelligence bill that we will later consider. For the past decade, Colombia's intelligence agency, the Department of Administrative Security, or the DAS, has engaged in illegal activities. Created to investigate organized crime, insurgents, and drug traffickers, the DAS instead provided paramilitary death squads with the names of trade unionists to be murdered and carried out illegal surveillance on journalists, human rights defenders, political opposition leaders, and Supreme Court judges. American cash, equipment, and training to help shut down drug trafficking may have been used for spy operations, smear campaigns, and threats against civil society leaders in Colombia. Several U.S. agencies aided the DAS--the State Department, Pentagon, DEA, CIA, and DIA--even as scandal after scandal after scandal became publicly known. It was only in April, 2010, when U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield suspended U.S. aid to the DAS, diverting those resources to the Colombian National Police. Yesterday, Congresswoman Schakowsky and I sent a letter to the Secretaries of State and Defense, the U.S. Attorney General, and the CIA Director, asking them to provide Congress with a comprehensive report on all forms of U.S. aid to the DAS and to tell us what the DAS used the aid for. It's not too much to ask, Mr. Speaker. There has been a shocking lack of oversight over all the U.S. aid that poured into the DAS over the past decade. Getting to the bottom of this is what oversight is all about. Colombia appears to be doing its part. The Attorney General is carrying out an aggressive investigation and series of prosecutions. Six former high-ranking intelligence officials have confessed to crimes. More than a dozen other operatives are on trial, with more still under investigation. President Santos has promised to dismantle the DAS and replace it with a new intelligence agency. But in the meantime, the old structures still remain. Witnesses cooperating with the Attorney General find themselves and their families threatened, and human rights defenders even now are still under surveillance. Mr. Speaker, I'm sure that U.S. intentions were good, but I also believe the DAS was generally up to no good. I find it impossible to understand how the State Department and Embassy officials can say with certainty that absolutely no U.S. aid funding was ever used by the DAS for criminal purposes. Congress must insist on safeguards to ensure that no funding, equipment, training, or intelligence-sharing with any Colombian intelligence agency is used for illegal surveillance or criminal activities now and in the future.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to bring the attention of my colleagues to a recent article by my friend, former Senator George McGovern, in the September, 2011 issue of Harper's magazine. In the article, Senator McGovern offers a series of recommendations to improve our Nation, including bringing our troops home from Afghanistan, investing in the jobs of the future, and reducing defense spending. Senator McGovern continues to bring an important, thoughtful perspective to the issues of the day. I urge my colleagues to read his article and to give serious consideration to the proposals he outlines. Easy Chair--A Letter to Barack Obama (By George McGovern) When President Franklin Roosevelt came into office in the depth of the Great Depression, he sought to stabilize and empower American society by introducing bold new initiatives: Social Security, the Public Works Administration, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Rural Electrification Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, among many others. These measures were sufficiently successful, as was his leadership during World War II, that he secured four terms in the White House. There was some congressional resistance but not enough to block the support of both political parties. Like Roosevelt, President Barack Obama has inherited a serious economic crisis, but in his first two years in office he has been met with an even worse problem: the rigid opposition of the rival party leaders to national health care and nearly every other proposal he has made. The Republican House Appropriations Committee has even voted to terminate public funding for NPR and PBS. Neither during my four years in the House of Representatives, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was in the White House, nor through eighteen years in the U.S. Senate, under John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon, have I witnessed any president thwarted by the kind of narrow partisanship that has beset Obama. He has tried to avoid such divisions by publicly explaining his willingness to compromise, but these gestures have been spurned. Some of his political critics have gone so far as to express the hope that the Obama Administration will fail, even avowing their determination to hasten that failure. What has happened, one is compelled to ask, to the love of nation? I have learned that it is not easy to succeed either as a senator or as a president if you are pushing for fundamental change. We tend, as lawmakers and as citizens, to drift along with the familiar ways of thinking: If it is good enough for Grandma and Grandpa, it is good enough for us. If it is good enough for the flag-wavers and the boasters, it is good enough for us. Such resistance to change often is strengthened by powerful interests--nowhere more forcefully than in the National Defense bill that Congress considers and passes each year. When I entered the U.S. Senate in 1963, the defense budget was $51 billion. This was at a time when our military experts felt it necessary to have the means to win a war against the combined powers of Russia and China. Today we have a military budget of over $700 billion, and yet neither Russia nor China threatens us, if indeed they ever did. Nor does any other nation. Furthermore, the terrorist threat we face is not a military matter. The World Trade Center was brought down not by artillery or bombers or battleships but by nineteen young Arabs equipped only with box cutters. The Department of Homeland Security created by the Bush Administration after this attack is a better instrument against terrorism than our military, even though our armed forces are the best in the world. In my career both in the House and in the Senate, inspired by the words of Eisenhower, my supreme commander in Europe during World War II, I tried hard to curb the powers of what Eisenhower, in his farewell address as president, referred to as the ``military-industrial complex.'' Needless to say, all my efforts to reduce military spending were defeated. With the renaming of the War Department as the Defense Department in 1947, the military part of the government became sacred, virtually untouchable. How could anyone vote to cut defense unless he or she is willing to face political defeat? We need a new definition of ``defense'' that takes into account the quality of our education, the health of our people, the preservation of the environment, the strength of our transportation, the development of alternative fuels, the vigor of our democracy. These were the concerns expressed by the people who stood in Cairo's Tahrir Square holding up their signs for more than two weeks this winter. Without guns, knives, or the use of their fists, they brought down the dictator who had exploited them for nearly thirty years. All Americans want their country to have an adequate military defense. But under pressure from corporate lobbyists and legislators seeking military contracts or bases for their states, we are spending to excess while other sources of national defense, such as health care and education, are shortchanged and the national debt grows ever larger. Many patriotic Americans have opposed the two wars our gallant young troops have been asked to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has estimated that the direct and indirect costs of the Iraq war will amount to $3 trillion. This represents nearly a quarter of our national debt. I suspect that the war in Afghanistan will eventually cost another $3 trillion and we still will not have achieved our aim. General David Petraeus, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, advises that we cannot think of withdrawing our troops before 2014. If we stay on that schedule, our soldiers will have been fighting, bleeding, and dying there for thirteen years--more than three times the length of U.S. involvement in World War

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, every year the Department of Agriculture collects, analyzes, and releases a report detailing the amount of domestic food insecurity. Yesterday, USDA released this report. This may sound like a wonkish, policy-driven report, but it is one of the most important reports written and released by any Federal agency. Simply put, Mr. Speaker, this is a report about hunger in America. Our country is going through very difficult economic times; the most difficult since the Great Depression. One of the results of this recession has been an increase in hunger. Families who have lost their jobs or have seen their incomes reduced because of the economy have had a difficult time putting food on their tables. It's common to see families who once volunteered at or donated to local food pantries now stand in line for food from these very same nonprofit organizations. Unfortunately, these organizations have had difficulty meeting the demands they've faced over the past few years. The good news, I suppose, is that the new USDA report shows that fewer people were food insecure in 2010 than in 2009. The bad news is that there are still 48.8 million Americans who struggled to put food on their tables last year. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, these numbers are unacceptable. It's unconscionable that even one person in this country goes without food, let alone 48.8 million people. It breaks my heart that 16.2 million of these hungry people are children. That's almost a quarter of the total food insecure population. President Obama pledged to end childhood hunger by 2015. It's clear, barring some dramatic shifts in policy, he's not going to achieve that goal. I regret that very much; so should every elected Member of this Congress. While 48.8 million hungry Americans is a daunting figure, it's important to realize that these figures would be much worse if it weren't for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. Formerly known as Food Stamps, SNAP is a true safety net program that helps low-income individuals and families buy groceries. The added benefit of SNAP is that it is also an economic stimulus that benefits local economies. It's a simple concept--for every SNAP dollar spent, $1.84 goes into the economy. But despite what SNAP critics may claim, SNAP prevented millions of Americans from going without food. Without a doubt, yesterday's food insecurity numbers would have been much worse if it weren't for SNAP. Mr. Speaker, hunger is a political condition. We have the means to solve hunger if we muster the political will to do so. SNAP is a proven program, one that prevents hunger while stimulating the economy. It's for both the moral reason and the economic reason that any deficit reduction proposal considered by the Select Committee on Deficit Reduction--the so-called supercommittee--must not cut SNAP or do anything that increases hunger and poverty. Cutting SNAP or similar antihunger programs will increase hunger, an action which I believe is morally indefensible. That's why I will be circulating a letter urging the 12 members of the select committee not to approve any deficit reduction policies that will increase hunger or poverty in this country. I urge my colleagues, Republican and Democrat, to join with me in this important letter. A responsibility of government is to protect the most vulnerable people in our country while doing everything we can to ensure that we pass on the strongest country possible to our children and our grandchildren. Cutting SNAP, the program that literally prevents millions of Americans from going hungry, would be wrong. And collectively, we must do everything we can to prevent any actions that increase hunger in America. These food insecurity numbers are sad and disheartening, but they are also a call to action. We can do better. We must do better.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on August 8, 2011, in Dharamsala, India, the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile, Tibetans from around the world will gather for a historic occasion, the inauguration of their democratically elected Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa). On March 20, 2011, tens of thousands of Tibetans living in countries around the world went to the polling booths to elect their next prime minister and parliament of the Central Tibetan Administration. Thousands of Tibetan-Americans across the United States also participated in these historic elections, including from my home state of Massachusetts. In April, Dr. Lobsang Sangay was declared the winner. He has Bay State roots. Raised as a stateless Tibetan refugee in India, his parents saved to get him an education. Through the U.S.-funded Tibetan Scholarship Program, he entered studies at Harvard University. He got a law degree there and stayed on as a research fellow for many years. The 43-year-old Lobsang Sangay takes over as chief executive of the Central Tibet Administration at a critical point, as much of the political responsibilities for the Tibetan community in exile now reside on his shoulders. In March 2011, the Dalai Lama announced his decision to devolve his political authority to the elected leadership. These changes were ratified by the Tibetan parliament in May. At a time when autocrats around the world are clinging to power, the Dalai Lama's voluntary effort to give up power is remarkable. It is the culmination of a decades-long process of nurturing the development of democratic institutions in the Tibetan exile community. This stands in stark contrast to the reality that neither Tibetans in Tibet, nor anyone in China, are allowed fundamental democratic freedoms or free elections. What the Tibetans have accomplished is worthy of our attention and respect. I had the chance to meet Lobsang Sangay when he came to Capitol Hill in July 2011, during the Dalai Lama's visit to Washington. I look forward to his return to discuss ways the United States can help Tibetans in their endeavor to find a solution for the Tibet issue. On the occasion of the inauguration of the next Kalon Tripa, Dr. Lobsang Sangay, I send my warm wishes to the Tibetan people and congratulate them on their democratic achievements.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman 20 additional seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN. At this time, Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the Democratic whip.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes. Mr. Speaker, I did not come to Washington to dismantle the New Deal or the Great Society, and I did not come to Washington to force more people into poverty. I agree that we need to avoid default and confront our long-term fiscal challenges. That is why on Saturday I voted in support of the Reid proposal which would have reduced our debt by hundreds of billions of dollars. But the bill before us today is unfair in so many ways. It disproportionately places the burden of dealing with our debt issue on the backs of those who can least afford it, while it spares the wealthiest from contributing anything. There is something fundamentally wrong when a billionaire hedge fund manager pays a lower tax rate than his secretary; when Big Oil can make tens of billions in profits every quarter, but still get sweetheart deals from the taxpayer; and when we are slashing funding for roads and bridges, but allowing tax breaks for corporate jet owners to continue. There are no new revenues in the bill before us today, only massive cuts in what is called domestic discretionary spending. But what does that actually mean? It means less investment in our transportation and infrastructure. It means less investment in medical research and education and food security. To put it simply, it means less jobs and higher unemployment at a time when millions of Americans are struggling to find work. And despite the rhetoric of its supporters, the bill puts Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block. We all know how we got into this mess: two huge tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy, that weren't paid for; two wars that weren't paid for; and a massive prescription drug bill that wasn't paid for. Now, there are certainly places to cut. Right now we are borrowing $10 billion every single month--$10 billion every single month--for military operations in Afghanistan to prop up a corrupt and incompetent Karzai regime. But according to the Congressional Budget Office, the spending caps contained in this legislation do not apply to ending that misguided war. That makes no sense to me. The truth is that the best way to deal with our long-term fiscal situation is to grow our economy. That means creating jobs and putting people back to work. This bill goes exactly in the wrong direction. I have two children who I love more than anything, and I don't want them to grow up in a country where the gap between the very rich and poor grows wider and wider each year. We can do better, Mr. Speaker. We must do better, and we can do so in a way that does not abandon the principles of economic justice and fairness that have made our Nation so great. I will vote ``no'' on this bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds. I hear a lot about the Bush tax cuts, but if they are so great, where are the jobs? I think it is simply wrong to have the middle class in this country bear the burden of balancing the budget when the Donald Trumps of the world get their tax cuts protected. There is something inherently wrong about that. I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee) for a unanimous consent request. (Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews). (Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Doggett), a member of the Committee on Ways and Means.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman 15 seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just remind the gentlelady that no one on the Democratic side ever walked out of a meeting. At this point, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee. (Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)