Christopher Murphy

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I think it serves us to point out that this belies conventional wisdom that Democrats are the ones to draw the line in the sand when it comes to fiscal responsibility. I mean, the image out there, for whatever reason, for a long time was that if you cared about deficit reduction, if you cared about drawing the line on spending, you might vote Republican. Well, that hasn't been backed up by facts for 12 years now. It was the Clinton administration that had record surpluses. It was a Republican President and a Republican Congress that racked up those enormous deficits. So now, we, as Democrats, are the ones coming down here and saying, listen, if you care about fiscal responsibility, this is the party that you want in charge of your Congress. This is the line that we're going to draw in the sand. And it bears pointing out the sort of strange irony of that because for a long time the conventional wisdom was the opposite. But the facts back up the reality, which is that if you care about spending, it's the Democrats that are going to offer to draw that line in the sand.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I want to underscore how important it is that you have seen a remarkable degree of coordination and bipartisan cooperation in the House on the second stimulus package. Because you and I both know as acutely as anybody in this Chamber, because we were out there campaigning for change here in Washington, that folks were sort of sick and tired of everything being a fight here, everything being lined up as Republicans against Democrats, conservatives against liberals, X against Y, A against B. That was kind of the order of the day here during the last 12 years before the election of 2006. Everything was going to be a partisan fight, and there really wasn't going to be any real effort to reach across the aisle. That's changed. You and I weren't here, but we know what the perception was from the outside. And the perception, and I think Ms. Wasserman Schultz will testify, that was backed up by reality. Now, cooperation that you see on the economic stimulus package doesn't mean that you still don't fight for what you believe in when you have an honest-to-goodness disagreement, and we are going to talk a little bit tonight about some fights that are about to come, some lines in the sand that we, as Democrats, are prepared to draw with the President and his Republican followers here in the House. But there are so many other things that you don't need to fight about, there is honest-to-goodness agreement on, whether it be jump-starting this economy with an economic stimulus package, whether it be passing reasonable restraints on the mortgage market, opening up access to liquidity for people who want to refinance their homes, have a means to do it but can't find anybody to give them the money and the access to capital. Those are issues that don't have right and left divides. The economic downturn doesn't discriminate against you whether you're a Republican or a Democrat. So we are passing bills here to deal with this economic slowdown with Republicans and Democrats behind it, and that's what people want us to do. Now, that doesn't mean they want this Chamber to be Kumbaya on every single issue. They sent us here to fight for what we believe and what the American people believe in. But you don't have to default to one position all the time or the other position all the time. You don't have to be cooperating on everything or fighting on everything. You can pick and choose. That's what a parent does every day. I mean, you choose the battles that you are going to fight with your kids. As a kid, you choose the battles you are going to fight with your parents. There are things that you get along with them on and things you disagree on. This place, for a very long time, resorted to the fault of fight about everything, never bother to reaching across the aisle, never try to pass a package with the Republicans and Democrats. I mean, why would you have to? If you have a majority of Republicans here, you can just pass it with Republicans. So why reach out to Democrats? The majority rules in the House. That's not what the American people want. They want to see that bipartisan partnership. They want to see bills not passing 51 percent to 49 percent. They want to see some bills passing by a real majority. That's what you saw with the 100 hours agenda, and that's what Ms. Wasserman Schultz pointed out. That's what you saw with the economic stimulus. You might not see it every time, but you are going to see it a lot more times in this Congress.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Annualized $400 billion operating deficits, the three largest operating deficits in the history of the Republic under the Bush administration, Ms. Wasserman Schultz.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That is backing up words with actions, Mr. Altmire.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. If the gentlewoman would yield, it's a wonderful world to live in, though, Ms. Wasserman Schultz. I mean this world in which you can spend money on all of these things that you want to spend money on, that you can have no one pay for it, that you can kind of convince yourself that all of the people that are lending you the money aren't going to really ever ask for it back, that you can additionally convince yourself that the fact that you owe money to all of your enemies isn't going to have any consequences when you want to fight them or negotiate with them. I mean, that's a great place to live in. A world full of no consequences. A world full of postponing all bad things until a moment in which no one is here to answer for them anymore. It's a wonderful place to live. But I've got to believe that that's why Mr. Altmire and I got sent here as part of the new class last November, that the American people kind of figured out that it was a myth. I mean, they figured out that it was an alternative universe. Now, they might not be as big a science fiction fan as you are, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, but they figured out that something was up. I mean, I come from a district that was Republican for 24 years that has these Rockefeller Republicans that are sort of socially moderate but fiscally conservative, and they came out and voted for Democrats in droves this year because they figured out what you knew all along, that this was just a made-up world here where you could just spend wildly on a war in Iraq, that you could borrow in order to pay for it, that you could rip the guts out of social services, and everything would be all right. So the American people, I think, have figured it out and they sent us here to fix it.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, let me just get this right. So we have spent billions upon billions of dollars, another 170 this year, on the war in Iraq, which is feeding the international terrorist movement, and this isn't our saying it, that's the 22 most important national intelligence organizations through the National Intelligence Estimate, that is feeding the frenzy of international terrorism and is growing the ranks of the people who want to do harm to us. So we're spending money in Iraq to increase the ranks of people who might do harm to us, and then we are cutting the money here at home that would make sure that none of them lands on our soil and does harm to us. That is a very odd thing for the President or the Republicans or anyone who supports that policy to have to explain to somebody.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Ms. Wasserman Schultz, I know we want to talk about that budget and how clear, once again, the President has made it, that his priority is going to be to turn the Federal Government's back on regular working folks out there who need a little bit of help getting their parents into a nursing home, who need a little bit of help getting quality education for their kid, who want to make sure their streets are safe. We're going to talk about that. But I think it's worth noting that we've gone through one budget cycle already here with Democrats in charge of the House, and we have shown this place, Washington, D.C., that we have shown everybody out there in America that you can have a responsible budget that sets you on a path towards balancing that budget within 5 years, and you can do it in a way that is still compassionate about the people out there who need a little bit of help from their government. You can do both. Mr. Altmire, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, and I all come from pretty fiscally conservative districts. We have people who want to see the Federal Government spending their money right. But we also come from districts full of people who do want to help their neighbors, who do want to reach out and give a helping hand when it's needed and when it can be done on a reasonable and efficient basis. And the budget we passed last year, it has a very modest growth in spending, but it invests in the right programs. It gives increases to programs like health care, research. It gives investments in community policing. It gives increases for elementary education. And it does it all while setting a course to balance the budget in 5 years. So you can do both. You can get fiscal responsibility, and you can make sure that you're covering your bases in the programs that help regular, average Americans. And we did it as a Congress. The President, once again, has submitted a budget to us that isn't going to do that.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. That's right, that this is going to be their problem, that these loans that we've taken out from China and from the Caribbean and from OPEC nations, they're going to want that money back. And they're going to want that money back 10 years from now, 20 years from now when folks who are now in their teens and their 20s and 30s are in their prime earning years. Just when they need to be mustering the money to send their kids to college, they are going to be paying exorbitant taxes to the Federal Government because we're going to have to start paying back that debt. So this is an issue that the 30-something Working Group talks about a lot because the problem is today, but even more gravely, the problem is in 20 or 30 years. And it's our obligation to be making policy not just for next week, but for the next decade.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I just want to share a story with you, if you will yield, Mr. Altmire. I was getting on a plane this morning to come down to Washington from my district, and an older gentleman recognized me as I was going through the security checkpoint. And he stopped me, and he said, I have written you a letter. I've got a real problem with what you're doing down there. And I said, Talk to me about it. And he looked me in the eye and started to tear up a little bit, and he said, My wife died of cancer last year. And he said, I can't for the life of me understand why you guys, and he lumped us all together, and I tried to explain the differences a little bit to him, but it was a very emotional moment. He said, I can't understand how you guys are cutting the funding for the programs that might save the life of the next wife who has cancer and instead you're spending money, billions of dollars, overseas on a war that's making us less safe. And he was tearing up. I mean, this is a personal and emotional issue for so many people in this country, as it should be, because they know. They read about the advances that are being made in science. Whether it be stem cell research or the thousands of other lines of inquiry that are making progress every day in this country, they know that it could be their loved one's disease whose cure or treatment is right around the corner. This should be a personal issue to everyone in this Chamber, and everyone should have to answer that question that you posed as to how on Earth we can pass a budget that freezes medical research that is going to cure diseases and make people better just in order to balloon a deficit, just in order to fund a war, just in order to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthy. The priorities are just so screwed up, and any person in this world can tell a story of a loved one who would be hurt by those cuts.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Thank you very much, Mr. Altmire. I don't want to take too much time because I know the American people are eager to hear your detailed line-by-line analysis of the President's budget, so let me be brief. You hit it on the head here. I mean, this budget that the President has proposed to us is the worst of both worlds. It cuts spending on programs that everyday middle-class families and seniors and the disabled use to simply grab hold of the apparatus of opportunity that has been stolen from them, and at the same time, it continues to spend wildly in other parts of the budget. It continues to give away massive, unjustified tax breaks for the richest 1 percent of Americans that aren't even being asked for by many of those people. And it results in a pretty ugly picture over the next several years for this country if we were to adopt the budget that the President put before us. It would mean massive cuts, as you've already laid out, to health care programs, to law enforcement programs. And, Mr. Altmire, this budget has got a 100-percent cut to the COPS program. The COPS program is the acronym for the community policing initiative that was started by President Clinton over 10 years ago. It is one of the most successful law enforcement programs that this Nation has ever seen. Any Member of this House on the Republican side of the aisle or the Democratic side of the aisle can just go down to their local police department, any one of them, and ask their local cops whether or not community policing has worked. It has. That's not me saying it, that's not just the statistics saying it, that's the experiences of thousands of community policemen who have been on the beat for years. Now, what's happened over time is the Republican Congress year after year slashed and burned that line item, and so many communities either had to take cops off the community policing beat or start picking up the tab themselves. That means increased property taxes for people because somebody has to pay for it. And this budget that we're looking at right now takes out the entire amount for community policing. I guess I just don't understand how you justify that. I mean, I would love to have somebody from the administration on this floor try to explain in a commonsense way why they don't believe that the experiences of thousands of communities and thousands of police officers is true, which is that community policing works. But here's the other side of this equation, Mr. Altmire, and I know we're going to talk about this. At the same time, it's not like we're getting anywhere for all of the cuts in this budget because this budget envisions the Federal deficit continuing to explode. Now, this is a small little chart, you probably can't see it, but this is a pretty dramatic, but accurate, representation of what's going to happen to the Federal debt. In 2001, we had about $5.8 trillion in Federal debt, and you can at least see that it only is going in one direction. Under the President's budget, by 2013 we're going to owe $13.3 trillion to foreign nations, Mr. Altmire. We are cutting funding for programs that matter, we are spending money wildly in other parts of the budget, primarily in the defense budget, and what we get in the end is a Federal budget that is more out of whack, more out of balance than it ever has been, and families who are struggling, amidst this economic slowdown, who are going to see less services and less help from their government.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I'm in your head, Mr. Altmire.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Let me stop you there for a second, because I liked what he said, too. But I would have liked it if he had said it for the last 7 years of his administration. I mean, you know, I hope it wasn't lost on anyone watching that State of the Union speech that for the last seven Congresses, as the Republican-led majority has spiraled spending out of control, has added on political earmark after political earmark, the President was absolutely silent on that matter. And it is just incredibly convenient that in the year in which the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives is the first year that we hear in a State of the Union speech the President talking about grants in Federally approved budgets.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. At the very time, Mr. Altmire, where our country is most in need of a skilled workforce. I mean you know it, because you do the same tours that I do to manufacturing facilities and worksites, that every company in our district is screaming to us, Do something about the workforce. I can hire people if you make sure that they are trained and educated and ready to work on day one. And so as we're sort of seeing a massive slowdown in this economy, potentially on the way to a recession, this is the very worst time to be cutting back our commitment to higher education programs, to worker and job training programs. And it runs totally counter to what we have been doing here in this Congress. I mean, we need to remind the President that he signed into law the biggest expansion in college aid since the GI bill, increasing the maximum allowable Pell grant, the direct grant to students by $500, providing for loan forgiveness to potentially tens or hundreds of thousands of students who go into public service professions; and, most importantly, cutting the interest rate for student loans in half from 6.8 to 3.4 percent, which is going to save the average college student in Connecticut about $4,000 over the lifetime of the repayment of their loan. That's real dollars when you couple it together with the other benefits that that package had. And that was a bipartisan success. That was conceived by Democrats. It took Democrats taking control of Congress to put that on the agenda. But there were a lot of our friends on the Republican side of the aisle that voted for it, and there was a President, maybe reluctantly, because he changed his position over time, but there was a President that signed that. So we have come together as a Congress to recognize the importance of helping kids and helping families pay for the increasing cost of higher education, and we should especially recognize the importance of that when our economy is having trouble getting its engine going. That's when we should be investing in workers. That's when we should be investing in education. And as you have so ably and accurately outlined, Mr. Altmire, this President's budget does an immediate 180 degree turn on the investments that we have been making and should continue to make in higher education.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Just to make one point there, the Democratic budget that we passed last year balances the Federal budget in 5 years. For the first time since the Clinton administration, we are going to have a balanced Federal budget. This isn't pie-in-the-sky rhetoric that you are putting out there, Mr. Altmire. The Democratic budget found a way that we passed at the end of last year to invest money in education, in environmental protection, in health care and do it in a responsible way that provides for a balanced budget in 5 years. There is a way to do it, and we are finding it here. We can do it again.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Let's hammer that home in a real world way for people. What does it mean when the President's budget reduces payments to nursing homes? In Connecticut, we have had a real crisis with a particular nursing home group that has gotten a lot of attention in the paper, Mr. Altmire, in the last several months regarding some really inexcusable conditions in those nursing homes, low levels of staffing, no remediation when violations had been found. And that problem is not going to get better if the solution from the Federal Government is to cut the funding that goes to those nursing homes. These nursing homes are already stretched very thin. There already isn't enough staff to cover the residents and make sure that seniors that are staying there are living under safe and humane conditions at all times in some places. This cut that the President is talking about in the cut and reimbursement rates to nursing homes is going to have a direct effect on the care that many thousands, hundreds of thousands of seniors get in this country. Your loved ones, your neighbors, their care is going to be compromised by this. The safety of your community is potentially going to be compromised by a zeroing out of the COPS budget. Communities will be less safe because there will be fewer community police on the beat. Those are the real world consequences of the budget that the President is putting before us. And the question is just a matter of choices. And that's what I hope that every Member of this House goes out and endeavors to ask over the next month or so as we debate this Bush budget, which is are you sure that your community wants to spend another $70 billion in Iraq rather than put cops on the beat or put staff in your grandmother's nursing home? Are you sure that the constituents in your district want to give away another massive tax break to the richest 1 percent of Americans instead of putting cops on the beat or putting staff in your grandmother's nursing home? Those are the questions that people are going to have to ask. And I think, Mr. Altmire, there's only one answer to that in any district in this country whether you are represented by a Republican or a Democrat.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. It just begs the question, Mr. Altmire. What was going through the minds of the Bush administration budget negotiators when they were sitting at the table last year negotiating with us as we were insisting on the biggest increase in veterans funding in the history of the program? I mean, we pushed that and pushed that and pushed that. You were courageous from the very first day that you got here in making that a priority. It is just so terrible to think that, well, the Bush administration was sitting there finally saying yes to that enormous and important increase in veterans funding, that all the while they were drafting that budget. All the while as they were agreeing just 60 days ago to the biggest increase in veterans funding since the VA program began, they were drafting secretly a budget that was going to reverse everything they just agreed to. That just speaks to the worst of what happens in Washington, D.C., Mr. Altmire.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. This is all sort of hard to take in. As you said, that massive budget document gets dropped on us, and the parade of horrors is endless in terms of all of the commonsense programs, whether it is homeland security, whether it is law enforcement, whether it is health care, whether it is research spending. It is just hard to handle. It is like it gets your brain going in overdrive. Then you got to step back for a second. I think it does make sense to step back and have a little bit of faith that now cooler and calmer heads can prevail. It used to be when that budget was dropped on Congress' desk in January or February that it basically was the law of the land, that with a few changes here or there, the Republican-led Congress was going to rubber stamp that President's budget. As much as Mr. Meek and Mr. Ryan and Ms. Wasserman Schultz before we got here would come down and try to expose all of those damaging harmful cuts to middle-class families throughout this country, to people trying to make their way in this world, that it didn't matter, because so long as Republicans controlled this place, there was going to be essentially a rubber stamp on all of those cuts and more massive deficit spending, the most fiscally irresponsible set of Congresses in our lifetime. That has changed now. That is different. And, listen. We are all fallible. We don't get every single choice right, even on our side of the aisle, Mr. Altmire. But the good news is, is that we are going to find a way to push back most of those cuts, if not all of them. We are going to find a way to pass another budget which gets us a little bit closer to a balanced budget. Now, the way we do that is sit here and expose all of the very harmful cuts and all the very harmful spending in this President's budget. But the American people should have some faith that you sent a new Democratic Congress here. You sent this new freshman class that we are a part of to pick apart that budget for the first time, and decide not only how to more compassionately spend American taxpayer dollars, but to more smartly spend them so that we are not racking up those huge deficits, so that we are starting to balance budgets again. So this is all very damaging news, and I know we are probably going to close on some of the worse news in the budget, but I think people should have faith that we now have leadership in charge of this Congress that is going to be able to pull apart that budget and start setting us on a commonsense and compassionate course again.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. I know we have our freshman colleagues coming in after us, so we are going to give them some room here. But I want to turn for a few minutes to a subject that you alluded to earlier, and I know you may have some more areas here in which we want to talk about what the devastating cuts are going to do, but I want to talk for a second before we hand it off to some of our other freshman colleagues about what is not in the budget, and you alluded to it before, most importantly, the cost of the war isn't truly reflected in this budget. In fact, some staff members on the Republican side made a comment earlier today that they even admit that the $70 billion that is put in this budget is essentially just a downpayment on what we are going to need to perpetuate the costs of this war in Iraq for the rest of the year. And it is just I think becoming impossible for our constituents to really understand why we can't include the costs of this war, whether you agree with it or disagree with it. We will save that for another day. Mr. Altmire, you know where I am on this question. I believe that we should get ourselves out of this mess sooner rather than later in a planned-for way. But while we are there, and while we are still spending money, let's pay for it. Let's budget for it responsibly. Now, I think you could probably make the argument in the first year or 2 years of this conflict that it was emergency spending, and that there was an argument to be made in the first few years of the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan that we were going to need to borrow some money for that. I have no problem understanding that in emergency circumstances, we are going to have to do some deficit spending. Nobody likes that. But with regard to the economic stimulus package that we are passing, it makes sense in very narrow circumstances to borrow some money in order to get some short-term gain when the spending is on an emergency basis. But we are 5 years into this war now, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is not catching us by surprise anymore. It is not an emergency expenditure anymore. We can plan years in advance for the money that we are spending on this war. There is no justification for this money not being in the budget. What happens is it is just hidden. When you get these figures about how big the deficit is going to be when we pass the President's budget, which we obviously won't do, but if we were to pass the President's budget, that doesn't even take into account the real costs of this war. If I were a taxpayer out there that was for this war, or if I were a taxpayer out there that was against this war, I would be greatly aggrieved, and I think they are greatly aggrieved by the fact that we are not paying for it. Well, we're going to. We're going to. Because these bills, whether they are on the tab of the war or whether they are on the tab of the domestic programs that haven't been paid for for years, they are going to be paid at some point. Those bills and those promissory notes are going to come due, and they are going to be paid for by your children and my future children, and your future grandchildren and my future grandchildren. We are hamstringing generations to come to pay for the costs of this war, and we should account for it. The second thing that is not covered, Mr. Altmire, is this thing that we keep on talking about down here called the alternative minimum tax. Now, I know there are still a lot of people out there that don't understand what the alternative minimum tax is because year after year, Congress has done the right thing and has held in abeyance the adjustment to the alternative minimum tax that would essentially make it cover most middle-class taxpayers in this country. In my district in Connecticut we have about 20,000 people that pay the alternative minimum tax that was initially set up just to cover the richest of the rich who weren't paying any tax through deductions or were paying very little tax through deductions and credits. If we don't fix the Alternative Minimum Tax again this year, in my district it is going to go from like 19,000 people paying it to like 80,000 people paying it. It is going to be a huge problem, thousands of additional dollars in tax obligations for millions of Americans. Well, the President doesn't say anything about that in this budget. I think he just assumes that we are going to fix it again, but he doesn't put the cost of doing that in the budget. So, if you tack on the costs of the war that aren't in this budget, if you tack on the costs of once again fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax which we should do and put that in the budget, this deficit is enormous, is enormous. I think we should be having a real argument over the real cost of this budget. Through all this sort of gimmickry that we see, all this trickery in how the numbers are accounted for, the war is not in there, the Alternative Minimum Tax fix isn't in there. I know this sort of goes over the head of a lot of people out there, because they say this is just the logistics of a budget. This is just numbers, where you put one number, where you put another number. It matters, because you can't hide money that we have to spend. Whether you put it in the budget or out of the budget, if you spend the dollar, somebody is going to have to pay for it. Maybe not now, but in 10 years or 20 years. Mr. Altmire, part of the reason that the 30-Something Working Group talks so much about deficit spending is because we are going to be around when those bills come due. We have an obligation, I think a special obligation as some of the younger Members of this House, to cry bloody murder when this President tries to do more deficit spending than he is even telling us here, because it is going to be our generation and our kids' generation that are going to have to pay for it.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Let's view this through a broader prism, and I think if you do, you see that this cut, in particular, is even crueler because we were set up for this moment. I mean, this has been 7 years of an energy policy which has been designed to do only one thing, a cynic might say, put more money into the hands of the big international oil companies, run by a lot of the friends of the folks that are in this administration. We have had an energy policy which has done nothing, has done nothing, essentially, to decrease the amount that people are paying to gas up their car or heat their homes. We have profits of record magnitudes coming from ExxonMobil and Chevron and BP and all of these major multinational oil conglomerates. We have had a Federal policy, led by this President and probably more accurately led by this Vice President, Vice President Cheney in his secret, closed- door meetings that have constructed most of this energy policy, that have stolen millions of dollars from American consumers with the tax breaks and regulatory giveaways to the oil industry that have allowed them to continue with no abandon to rip off American consumers. The LIHEAP program is just an added insult to an energy policy which has been taking money out of American taxpayers' pockets and putting it into the oil companies' treasuries. The LIHEAP program simply says this, this has been the policy of this administration and the Republican Congress for the last 8 years, for the last 6 years, they have said, we're going to do nothing to help you with prices, we're just going to continue to watch energy prices spiral and spiral and spiral and have no short-term or long-term strategy to do anything about it. But on the back end, we're going to help you a little bit with some subsidy dollars for the people in your community that are so hard up they are going to need some help to pay those bills or else they would freeze in their houses, which is what you're talking about. You're talking about people who would potentially freeze in their houses if they don't get a little bit of help from their government to pay for their heating oil bills, largely seniors on fixed incomes in our community. And now not only do we have an administration that is not willing to work with us on reforming our energy policy to break our addiction to foreign-produced oil, to finally get a grip on these spiraling oil prices because we have got an administration that cares more about the pockets of their oil company friends than the pockets of the regular, average, everyday consumers, now also we are taking away that small, tiny little subsidy that prevents people from freezing in their homes because they can't afford to heat it. When you step back a little bit, when you are right in that budget, everybody here should make it one of their top priorities, whether you live in a cold weather State or a warm weather State, to put the money back for the LIHEAP program. Put the money back for the heating assistance for low-income people. But let's also understand that it is even more egregious given the fact that we could have done something 10 years ago, 5 years ago, to prevent ourselves from getting into a position where we are continuing to subsidize these big energy companies and have to be reliant on low-income heating assistance to keep people warm in the winters.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. It doesn't make sense. It wouldn't make sense even in good economic times, Mr. Altmire, because you know even in the so-called boom years of the 1990s and earlier in this decade, those jobs were still leaving Pennsylvania. Those jobs were still leaving the northwestern part of Connecticut. And you always need to have just that safety net, just enough help for people to bounce back, because the folks that live in our districts, as they do across the Nation, these are proud, proud people. They want a job. They want to work hard. They do not want to be out of work. They do not want to be undertrained. And they are going to take the opportunities that we give them just to be able to bounce back and reenter the economy. That is all we are talking about with these programs. This isn't permanent job assistance. This isn't the welfare state. This is just, listen, your company went out of business, shipped their jobs over to China, shipped their jobs down to Mexico. We're going to help you for a certain period of time learn a new skill so you can get back and be a productive member of society. That is an important project to undertake in any economic time but most critical now when more and more people need that help, Mr. Altmire, that is critical right now.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Chairman, I thank Chairman Grijalva, and thank you also to Chairman Rahall and my good friend Mr. Olver from Massachusetts for their hard work and diligence in bringing this bill to the House floor. The process by which it comes to us started long before I arrived here. Mr. Chairman, in this digital age, our computers, our cell phones, our BlackBerrys, our PDAs, they have all collapsed vast distances that for so long have defined our lives. Continents can now be bridged in seconds with just the touch of a button, and the miles of fiber optic cable running beneath our feet and the satellites orbiting miles above our heads have helped make our modern world seem much smaller and much more compact. The idea of sending a physical letter through the mail now seems charmingly outdated in an age where communication is measured at the speed of light. But in our wholesale embrace of this breathtaking new age of technology, we sometimes have lost sight of the enduring power of the natural world. Back in the outdoors, one is once again reminded of the sheer immensity and the beauty of the world around us. Getting away from our cars, getting away from our desks and laptops, thousands of New England residents every day take to the parks, to the trails, and to our reserves to reconnect with the natural world that thrives quietly all around us. I rise today in strong support of H.R. 1528, the New England Scenic Trail Designation Act, because it will give thousands of more Americans, many of whom reside in the Fifth District of Connecticut, access to one of the most beautiful natural resources throughout the Northeast. The Metacomet-Monadnock-Mattabesett Trail, or the MMM Trail, runs some 220 miles from the southern border of New Hampshire all the way down to the Long Island Sound, from Royalston, Massachusetts, to Guilford, Connecticut, cutting across the Farmington Valley towns and the towns of New Britain and Meriden in the Fifth Congressional District of Connecticut. Now, this isn't some secluded, inaccessible trail. This gem runs right through the heart of some of this district's most populous areas. More than 2 million people live within 10 miles of the MMM Trail, making it uniquely accessible as a recreational opportunity for hikers, for joggers, for picnickers, and for everyone who loves the outdoors. With this bill's passage, the MMM Trail will become only the ninth scenic trail designated in the 40-year history of the national trail system, joining the likes of the Appalachian Trail and the Continental Divide Trail throughout the country as these national scenic recognized trails. Until now, the MMM Trail has been maintained through the generosity of private donors, through natural preservation groups and landowners who have allowed people to pass through the trail of their own accord. With Federal recognition, the trail will have access to grants and to resources that will help with its maintenance, with its preservation, and with public awareness. The hundreds of thousands of Connecticut and Massachusetts residents who have enjoyed the MMM Trail over the past half century will be joined by scores of new visitors coming to enjoy its breathtaking vistas, its distinctive flora and fauna, and its rich history. And those who have enjoyed the MMM Trail in the past will now be assured that the trail will be protected for future generations, while ensuring that the trail is actively maintained and cared for for all. Perhaps the most important backers of this trail are the thousands of nature lovers who have hiked and enjoyed the MMM Trail for decades. Just today, Adam Moore, the director of the Connecticut Forest and Park Association, wrote me. He said: ``It's thrilling to me to think that this beautiful trail that I once hiked with my father could now become a scenic trail. I recall dangling my legs off the rocks of Mt. Pisgah in Durham while my father pointed out the gold building in Hartford some miles away gleaming in the distance. It is so inspiring to think that this trail in my home community could merit national status and recognition and that people will be able to enjoy it for years to come.'' Mr. Chairman, I would like to submit at the conclusion of my remarks several such testimonials for the Record. Mr. Chairman, as chairman of the Congressional Land Conservation Caucus and a representative of the thousands of Connecticut residents who lie along the MMM Trail, who have enjoyed it for years and will enjoy it for years to come, I hope that the House will join me in recognizing and protecting this beloved trail for future generations. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of H.R. 1528 and join me in the near future for a hike through the beautiful hills of New England. Simsbury Land Trust, Simsbury, CT, January 21, 2008. Representative Christopher Murphy, Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC Dear Representative Murphy: We want to thank you for your time and comments January 12 at the Avon Community Center. It is easy to start thinking of our local challenges in a vacuum and it is useful to have an opportunity like your visit provided to sit down with others and to look at the bigger picture. We also appreciate your offer to help should we think your office could be of assistance in working with federal programs. I actually plan to send some ideas and a request this winter. In the meantime, we wanted to get this thanks to you and also to respond to your comments regarding the New England Scenic Trail Designation Act and recognition of the MMM Trail. We could not agree more with you that this is vitally important. As you know, the MMM Trail runs through Simsbury as well as other Farmington Valley towns. It is the most heavily used trail in this town as well as in neighboring towns. It is easily accessible to the Greater Hartford area, it has spectacular views of both the Farmington River Valley to the west and the Connecticut Valley to the east and it is rugged enough to be both physically and intellectually challenging. Over many years the State of Connecticut, towns and land trusts along the trail have acquired large sections of the ridge over which the trail runs. However, there are still important sections that all of us continue to work on. We know well from experience along this trail as well as others that trails are under continual pressure as development along the hillsides crowds out this historical use. This trail is a regional and national treasure that gets heavy public use by local residents and visitors alike. National scenic designation will be a valuable tool and will be a great help in assisting regional efforts to maintain this resource for years to come. Thanks again for your recent visit. Sincerely, Richard A. Davis, President.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Altmire, let me just clarify what you're saying. In the past if somebody had come down to this floor and had spent an hour railing against the massive amount of earmarks in the bill, we wouldn't know that that person had requested some 20-odd earmarks in the bill. We wouldn't know unless we had these rules in place.

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut

Mr. MURPHY of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, we need a tear-down reform of our national health care system. But until we do that, we have an obligation to fund the providers and institutions that make our system work despite the system. That is why I am so proud of the budget passed by the House last night. President Bush's budget would have required cuts of 800 grants for medical research at the National Institutes of Health. He would also cut programs that provide access to health care by $595 million and rural health care initiatives by more than 50 percent. We rejected those cuts last night in a bipartisan fashion. We approved a bill that included $607 million above the President's request for critical medical research. And we approved money for community health centers so that they can provide access to 280,000 more uninsured Americans. Finally, we approved $147 million above the President's budget request for rural health care for those critical access projects. Mr. Speaker, the health of the United States is stronger today because of the budget we passed last night.