Jim McGovern

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia who serves on the Financial Services Committee, Mr. Scott.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN. I am the final speaker.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, this bill does nothing to solve our long- term fiscal challenges because everybody here knows that this isn't going anywhere. Instead, it's a political stunt. Instead, it hurdles us closer and closer to a devastating default. For years, Presidents and Congresses of both parties have raised the debt ceiling, recognizing that endangering the full faith and credit of the United States would be a grave mistake. It's amazing to me how many Republicans I've heard who dismiss the potential of default as no big deal. No big deal? Tell that to the family who would have to pay higher interest rates on their mortgage, their car loan, their student loan. It would be a very big deal to them. Many of my friends on the other side of the aisle didn't just stand by as we created these massive deficits. They were active participants. They voted for two huge tax cuts--mostly for wealthy people--that weren't paid for, two wars that weren't paid for, a massive prescription drug program that wasn't paid for, and now their solution is to punish the very Americans who can least afford it, all in the name of keeping their rich friends and their special interests happy. The Boehner plan is unbalanced and unfair. It slashes programs like Social Security and Medicare that benefit the middle class and the poor. But the Republicans insist on protecting tax breaks for oil and gas companies. Just today, ExxonMobil announced profits of $10.7 billion for the second quarter. Do they really need special tax breaks? The American people sure don't think so. Poll after poll shows that a vast majority of American citizens prefer a balanced approach. Yes, we need to cut spending. Yes, we need to reform our government. But everybody needs to chip in to do their part, including the very wealthy who have benefited the most. Now, there are certainly places to save. How about ending wars that aren't paid for? Right now, we borrow $10 billion every month for military operations in Afghanistan alone, to prop up a corrupt and incompetent Karzai government. How about ending wasteful subsidies to big agriculture companies? How about asking billionaire hedge fund managers to pay the same tax rates as their secretaries? 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. The last election, I thought, was about jobs. We haven't talked about jobs at all since the new Republican majority came to power. That means investing in things like education and infrastructure and green technology and medical research. That's the kind of economic future the American people deserve. The Boehner default plan would take us exactly in the wrong direction, and I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to reject it. [From Bloomberg, July 26, 2011] Republican Leaders Voted for Debt Drivers They Blame on Obama (By Lisa Lerer) House Speaker John Boehner often attacks the spendthrift ways of Washington. ``In Washington, more spending and more debt is business as usual,'' the Republican leader from Ohio said in a televised address yesterday amid debate over the U.S. debt. ``I've got news for Washington--those days are over.'' Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation's debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry. Together, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News, these initiatives added $3.4 trillion to the nation's accumulated debt and to its current annual budget deficit of $1.5 trillion. As Congress nears votes to raise the $14.3-trillion debt ceiling to avert a default on U.S. obligations when borrowing authority expires on Aug. 2, both parties are attempting to claim a mantle of fiscal responsibility. They both bear some of the blame: Many Democrats contributed to the expenses that are forcing lawmakers to boost the nation's debt limit, as have Republican leaders at odds over how much borrowing authority to hand President Barack Obama and when. ``There's plenty of blame to go around,'' for the debt, said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, an Arlington, Virginia-based group that advocates for balanced budgets. ``If there had been no Barack Obama, we would still be bumping up against the debt limit.'' Debt Has Doubled Since 2001, the debt has grown from $5.8 trillion. Republicans say the long-term growth of entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, along with depressed tax revenues due to the worst recession since the Great Depression, drive the current debt level. ``Blaming Bush for the structural deficits we've known would come since the early 1990s is beyond irresponsible.'' said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Cantor. In his address yesterday, Boehner accused Obama of going on the ``largest spending binge in American history.'' Obama's 2011 annual budget, Republicans note, drove federal spending to a record $3.8 trillion. Non-defense discretionary spending also grew by 24 percent during the first two years of the Obama administration, they say, adding $734 billion in spending over the next 10 years. Recession Worsened Deficit The recession, Obama said in a televised address from the White House yesterday, lowered revenue and required his administration to ``spend even more'' on tax cuts, unemployment insurance and state and local aide. ``These emergency steps also added to the deficit,'' he said. Some Democrats also supported the Bush administration programs. In the Senate, Obama voted to finance the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and TARP. He signed legislation extending the Bush-era tax cuts for two years in December. ``Both sides are claiming they're fiscally responsible,'' said Rudolph Penner, director of the Congressional Budget Office under President Ronald Reagan. ``But I don't see much difference in that regard.'' Bush Tax Cuts The 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which lowered tax rates on income, dividends and capital gains, increased the federal budget deficit by $1.7 trillion over a decade, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan left-of-center group in Washington that studies fiscal policy. The two-year extension of those tax cuts that Obama signed will cost $857.8 billion, according to the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation. Boehner has defended the tax cuts, arguing that they didn't lead to the deficit. ``The revenue problem we have today is a result of what happened in the economic collapse some 18 months ago,'' he told reporters on June 10, according to The Hill newspaper. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost almost $1.3 trillion since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, according to a March 29 analysis by the Congressional Research Service. Operations in Iraq have cost $806 billion, and in Afghanistan $444 billion. The analysis shows the government has spent an additional $29 billion for enhanced security on militia bases and $6 billion remains unallocated. Medicare Drug Benefit The 2003 Medicare prescription program approved by President George W. Bush and a Republican-dominated Congress has cost $369 billion over a 10-year time frame, less than initially projected by Medicare actuaries. Nine Senate Republicans, including Nebraska's Chuck Hagel, along with 25 Republicans in the House, voted against the bill. Hagel argued that it failed to control costs and would add trillions in debt for future generations. ``Republicans used to believe in fiscal responsibility,'' Hagel wrote in a 2003 editorial in the Omaha World Herald. ``We have lost our way.'' TARP, the $700-billion bailout of banks, insurance and auto companies, has cost less than expected. McConnell, Boehner, Cantor and Ryan all voted in October 2008 for the program, which stoked the rise of the Tea Party movement. Many institutions have repaid the government. The latest estimated lifetime cost of the program is $49.33 billion, according to a June 2011 report by the Treasury Department. That figure includes the $45.61 billion cost of a housing program which the administration never expected to recoup. Rank-and-file Republicans are eager to pin the blame on Democrats, frequently pointing to the economic stimulus signed by Obama in 2009. The total cost of the stimulus will be $830 billion by 2019, according to a May 2011 Congressional Budget Office report. That's half the cost of the Bush tax cuts and less than two-thirds of what has been spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 2 minutes to a member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Yarmuth).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Lujan).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, at this time it's my privilege to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Clyburn), the distinguished assistant leader.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I appreciate it very much. The problem is you're bringing it under a suspension of the rules, the most closed process that we have in this House. There are no amendments. Quite frankly, even 3 days is not enough to do the proper and due diligence on a constitutional amendment to the United States Constitution.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. I want to thank the ranking member, the gentlelady from New York, for yielding me the time. I rise today to oppose this rule and the underlying legislation. Mr. Speaker, I have two children, ages 13 and 10, and one of our favorite things to do as a family is to go hiking. We have hiked all over this great country. We have a love and a respect for our open spaces and for our environment. Unfortunately, the Republicans' fiscal year 2012 Interior appropriations bill throws that into grave danger. This Interior appropriations bill represents an unprecedented departure from our Nation's decades-long bipartisan commitment to protecting our shared environment, magnificent natural resources and our cherished cultural treasures. It's a shame that my Republican colleagues prioritize tax breaks and incentives for highly profitable oil companies over the Grand Canyon, the Cape Cod National Seashore, State parks, and even public health. Mr. Speaker, I could be here all day talking about the harmful cuts and misplaced priorities that are included in this bill: from the more than 25 policy riders that do not belong in an appropriations bill, that do everything from gutting the Endangered Species Act to allowing uranium drilling by foreign companies alongside the Grand Canyon, to the harsh cuts in EPA funding that will result in millions of Americans being exposed to dirtier air and dirtier water. I give my Republican colleagues credit. They have left no stone unturned in their environmental assault. Unfortunately, though, that stone will be covered in toxic algae, coal ash, and polluted water if they have their way. One of the most egregious cuts in this bill is to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The Land and Water Conservation Fund has been one of the greatest conservation success stories over the past 50 years, protecting thousands and thousands of acres of land at the Federal and State levels. States rely on this funding and demonstrate their commitment to its value by providing matching funding for State park and recreational purposes. Not only that, but the Land and Water Conservation Fund has a dedicated source of funding derived from oil and gas leasing in the Outer Continental Shelf and is authorized to accumulate $900 million annually from its dedicated sources. Nonetheless, my Republican friends forget all of this and still slash the Land and Water Conservation Fund funding by 78 percent from the current fiscal year. This represents the lowest level of funding in the 45-year history of the Land and Water Conservation Fund. What's most troubling is that, in the committee report, my Republican colleagues acknowledge the enormous value of the Land and Water Conservation Fund but then go right ahead and decimate its budget. The bill also cuts clean water and safe drinking water grant programs by nearly 40 percent, threatening Americans' ability to access clean water and adding to the already significant backlog of safe drinking water infrastructure projects. Look, I know it's politically popular to demonize the EPA right now, and at times I've had my own strong disagreements with the EPA on certain issues, but this Interior appropriations bill is not the way to meaningfully address any of those disagreements. This bill puts the priorities of special interests and scoring cheap political points over public health and our natural resources. It's as simple as that. Mr. Speaker, I realize that these are tough budgetary times, but what troubles me about the Republicans' approach to this appropriations process is that so many of their cuts are aimed at programs that will lower the standard of living and lessen the quality of life for a majority of Americans. This appropriations process should be about lifting people up, not putting people down, and it should be about a decent respect for our environment, and certainly a respect for our environment over corporate special interests. When we talk about protecting our environment, we're talking about quality of life issues that impact every single person in this country. This bill undermines our historic bipartisan commitment to our environment. I would urge my colleagues to reject this rule and reject the underlying bill.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let's be clear. Under the Republican plan, they will cut Social Security and Medicare by $6,000 per senior citizen. Talk about a tax increase. At this point, I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts, I just would like to respond to the gentlelady from Tennessee. When she talks about the need for political will, what we need is the political will to stand up to Big Oil and to end subsidies that amount to corporate welfare. The bill that my Republican colleagues are bringing to the floor today let's them off the hook and, instead, goes after the poor and the most vulnerable and our senior citizens. That's why this bill is so outrageous, because they are so unfair. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just say to the gentleman from Louisiana that we can't compete without investments in innovation and infrastructure and education, and the bill that my Republican friends have brought before us today on the floor would devastate this economy. It would absolutely devastate the American economy. I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano). (Mr. SERRANO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California, a member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Honda.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentleman an additional 10 seconds.

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Jackson).

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 seconds. I just want to say to the gentleman from Georgia the reason why the President issued a veto threat is because he doesn't want you to destroy Social Security and Medicare, two of the most important social programs in this country that benefit millions and millions of seniors. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Matsui).

Mr. McGOVERN. I yield the gentlewoman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. McGOVERN

Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.