Dave Obey

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have only one remaining speaker, the Speaker herself.

Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentleman for his cooperation, and I yield our remaining time to the distinguished Speaker, the gentlewoman from California.

Mr. OBEY. I urge support for the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 3 minutes. Mr. Chairman, I am tempted to ask the Chair what year is this? I thought it was--yeah, I didn't think it was 1933--I thought it was 2009, or something close to it. I guess all I would say is, you know, they don't look like Herbert Hoover, but there are an awful lot of people in this Chamber who think like Herbert Hoover, and I think this amendment illustrates that. If you vote for this amendment, you'll be knocking out all funding for education funding, including every single dollar in this bill to prevent State and local governments from raising taxes in the middle of a recession in order to avoid laying off teachers, in order to avoid laying off speech therapists, school nurses, and the whole shebang. You would be cutting out all infrastructure. You would be eliminating $30 billion for highway construction. Those jobs go blewy. You would be eliminating $19 billion for clean water projects, flood control and environmental restoration. Those jobs go blooey. You would be eliminating all energy funding in this bill, $32 billion to transform the Nation's energy transmission distribution production systems. So those jobs go blooey. And we also lose the chance to modernize this economy. All science funding, all of the jobs that would be provided in the science area by this bill, those jobs are out the window. All of the jobs that would be created by giving rural America an opportunity to get wired up with real broadband, just like the rest of the country, that would be out the window, too. This amendment in my view demonstrates that some people recognize the cost of everything and the value of nothing. It is an amendment that we can ill-afford to pass, and I urge defeat of the amendment. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Chairman, the fact is this economy is in mortal danger of absolute collapse. We are trying to avoid that by injecting consumer spending into the economy in hopes that it will reinflate the economy at least to some degree. The fact is that the cost of doing nothing would be astronomical. Of course this package costs money. How much will it cost us if the credit markets totally freeze up? How much will it cost us if we lose employment opportunities for another 3 to 4 million Americans? How much will it cost us in added unemployment compensation, in added welfare payments and all of those items if we don't do something to stave off economic disaster? This amendment is primitive economically. It does not recognize the reality of a modern economy. I urge its defeat. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, this amendment in many ways is similar to the Neugebauer amendment, and I would say the same things about it that I said about that amendment. This essentially throws millions of jobs out the window. All of the jobs for school teachers, for speech therapists and school nurses and the like that would be saved by the State stabilization fund to protect education, all of those jobs out the window by this amendment. All of the jobs that would come from remodeling and repairing and refurbishing old, worn-out schools under the new modernization program, out the window with those jobs. All of the infrastructure funding for highway construction, out the window. We heard the Republicans lecture us for 2 days about the importance of that. Now they want to throw it overboard. All of the jobs that would come from increasing our clean water revolving fund project list and the sewer and water programs around the country, all of those jobs, out the window. All of the jobs that would come from modernizing our energy grid, out the window. All of the jobs that come from investing in new science and technology, out the window. And then all of the help that goes to people through programs like food stamps, out the window. Mr. Chairman, I want to predict what is going to happen on that side of the aisle on this vote. I predict that just as happened in committee when we got no minority party support for the bill that we produced in committee, when this bill comes to a vote today, virtually all of our Republican friends will vote ``no.'' The bill will then go to the Senate, and after they gauge whether or not that bill can be killed or not, then if the bill comes back from the conference committee and it is obvious that the bill cannot be killed, at that point you will see a significant number of our friends from the Republican side switch and vote ``aye.'' It is an old playbook, Mr. Chairman. That is exactly what they did to FDR on Social Security when they tried to kill it in its crib. And then when they couldn't beat it, they finally joined the parade. That is the same thing that they did to LBJ on Medicare. When they tried to kill and after they couldn't kill it, in the end they went along so that people wouldn't know that they tried to kill it in the first place. I would hope that sooner or later we could cut through that gamesmanship. I would hope that we would recognize, as Martin Luther King said a long time ago which our President reminded us of in his inaugural, I would hope that we would remember the urgency of now. Every week that we temporize, 100,000 or more Americans lose their jobs. That doesn't just hurt those working Americans, it hurts their families. It hurts the economy, it hurts the neighborhood. It hurts everybody in this society. And it hurts the global economy as well. Sooner or later we have to recognize this is not Herbert Hoover time. The time for action is now.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

Mr. OBEY. I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman be given 1 additional minute.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I withdraw my reservation and rise in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, this amendment is a perfect example of how people can fall off both sides of the same horse at the same time. If you take a look at what the criticism has been of this bill all week long, you will remember that the other side has constantly said that we are just throwing money at the problem. That it can't possibly be spent. Yet, they would add some $25 billion to the Corps budget, despite the fact that the Corps has told us that they can only push out the door about $4 billion in new projects. They have told us for days now. They have criticized us and lacerated us with criticism because they said that we had money in here for infrastructure that couldn't possibly be spent out in the next 2 years. And now they are adding $36 billion more. What this amendment does, as we understand it, is to add $36 billion for highways and $25 billion to the Corps. And if they were standing alone, I might not object. But they pay for it with $160 billion in cuts in other parts of the bill. They crush broadband, for instance; something which is essential if every community in this country is going to compete for jobs and for an economic future. They cut the science programs in the National Science Foundation that will put hundreds of thousands of people to work in the scientific area. They eliminate the Federal Buildings Energy Retrofit Program. Those jobs are all gone. They have attacked us for putting things in a bill that don't belong in a jobs bill. Yet, they cut job training funds in half and they cut displaced workers by half a billion dollars. We should be doubling those funds, not cutting them. They eliminate the green jobs initiatives in this bill. They take one-half billion dollars out of community health centers. They cut in half the amount of money that we are devoting to try to develop the added primary care physicians and nurses that we will need given what is happening to the health care crisis in this country. They take $750 million out of the National Institutes of Health, wiping out the jobs of thousands of scientists who right now are not being put to good use because we only fund 20 percent of approved science at NIH. And, lastly, they guarantee that there will be substantial tax increases at the State level because they gut the State stabilization fund which is designed to help States so that they wind up not having to raise taxes, so that they don't wind up having to cut key education services. How many of us have gone home and cried for years about the fact that the Federal Government has not met its promises on special education? And yet they wipe out the advances we have made in special education. This is an unbalanced approach to a serious problem. I urge a ``no'' vote. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 1, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings.

Mr. OBEY

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 5 minutes. Mr. Chairman, this country is facing what most economists, I believe, consider to be the most serious and the most dangerous economic situation in our lifetimes, certainly going back to the early thirties. If you take a look at what has happened in the country, late last year, former President George Bush recognized that the world's credit markets were near a state of total collapse, and he asked this Congress to take unprecedented action in order to try to prevent that. Since that time, we've seen a continued unraveling of financial markets, we've seen a continued unraveling of the housing markets, and we've seen the most spectacular loss of consumer confidence in the modern history of this country. New claims for unemployment insurance last week hit 590,000. In the last 2 months alone, we've seen this country lose more than a million jobs. Consumer purchasing power has evaporated. New home starts fell 15 percent in December, to the lowest number on record going back more than 50 years. And we've seen other evidence of panic in the marketplace and on Main Street. Normally, when consumer purchasing power collapses, our government uses the tool of monetary policy in order to try to resurrect and reinflate the economy. The problem is we've already shot that bullet. The Federal Reserve has taken phenomenal actions to try to stabilize the situation to very moderate effect. And now we're being asked to consider the other tool in our arsenal. We're being asked to use fiscal policy to expand consumer purchasing power to try and stop the slide. And that is what this proposal before us here today will try to do. In most recessions, we're eventually led out of those recessions through the leadership of the housing sector and the automobile sector. This time around, both of those sectors are in shambles, and they're not likely to lead anybody out of anything. So that leaves us with very limited tools. This package today that we are considering is an $825 billion package that does a variety of things to try to reinflate the economy. It, first of all, provides tax cuts--which Mr. Rangel will discuss--in order to try to put some money in people's pockets. We hope that that succeeds to a greater extent than the last round of tax rebates did. Secondly, this package attempts to jump-start job creation through infrastructure investments in roads, bridges, sewers, water repair, modernizing our electric power grid and expanding broadband access so that all parts of the country have an opportunity to compete, with Internet access. Third, this package attempts to help those who are most impacted by the recession, who are losing their jobs, their health insurance, and losing the ability to send their kids to college. Fourth, this package attempts to modernize the economy--or at least to begin a long process of doing that--by accelerating the development of new technology through key investments in science and energy. And last, it attempts, also, to save jobs by stabilizing State and local budgets. Because of the economic collapse and because of the collapse of revenue now forecast at the State and local level, States face the need to eliminate gargantuan deficits because they're required to balance their budgets. Without help from the Federal Government to stabilize their situation, they will be forced to impose major tax increases and devastating service cutbacks, which under these economic conditions would be hugely counterproductive. This package attempts to do all of those things. Now, none of us can be certain about the degree of success that would flow from passage of this package.

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 2 additional minutes. But the fact is we are as close as we will ever see to being in the same position that Franklin Roosevelt was in in the thirties. And at that time he tried some things; some of the things he tried worked, some of them didn't, and so he moved on and tried other things. There is no person on this floor who can guarantee the success of this package. Certainly, standing alone, this package will not succeed, because it is going to have to be accompanied by further actions to build confidence in the economy. It is going to have to be accompanied by new actions to prevent massive house foreclosures all across the country. We are going to probably have to have even further intervention in the financial markets of the country. And this package that we have here today, the spending portion of this package, may very well undershoot rather than overshoot the target that many economists have set out for us. When President Bush came to office, I was divided in my judgment about whether I should support his first major new initiative, which was the No Child Left Behind education package. I had grave misgivings about that package, but in the end I supported it, largely because I thought that, as the incoming President, the President deserves to have the benefit of the doubt. President Obama is in that same situation, only in far more dire straits. He has asked the Congress to pass an economic recovery package, and this bill today is attempting to do that.

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 1 additional minute. He has asked us to provide a reasonable balance between tax cuts and spending increases to revive the ability of consumers to purchase the goods and services produced by this society. Unless someone has a clearly better idea, I think we have an obligation to support the President's proposal, at this point as the only game in town. The risks are enormous if we do not move ahead. Everyone talks, for instance, about how disappointed they are with what the previous Bush administration did with respect to the package on Wall Street. I'm certainly extremely unhappy with some of the actions taken by Secretary Paulson.

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 1 additional minute. I believe, nonetheless, that the President was right at the time in telling the Congress that if we did not take action, the results could have been catastrophic. I believe if we do not take action on this package today, the results can be similarly catastrophic. And with that, I urge Members to support the package. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, pursuant to the rule, I yield 15 minutes to the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel; 15 minutes to the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Waxman; 10 minutes to the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, Mr. Miller; 10 minutes to the chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mr. Oberstar; 5 minutes to Ms. Giffords of the Science and Technology Committee; 5 minutes to the chairwoman of the Small Business Committee, Ms. Velazquez; 5 minutes to the chairman of the Budget Committee, Mr. Spratt; and 2 minutes to the chairman of the Government Investigations Committee, Mr. Towns.

Mr. OBEY. I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. Dicks).

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 1 minute. Mr. Chairman, if we are going to quote CBO, we ought to quote CBO accurately. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has said that, in their estimate, 65 percent of the money in this bill will be spent in the next 2 years. The administration's estimate is 75 percent. I would point out CBO also says that over the next 2 years this bill will inject $526 billion into the economy, and they state that the implementation of this bill ``would have a noticeable impact on economic growth and employment in the next few years.'' That is a whole lot better than doing nothing.

Mr. OBEY. I yield myself 15 seconds. My friend from Iowa says that this bill is too big. I will make a deal with him. I will be happy to give him a smaller bill if he will show me a smaller problem.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. OBEY. I would be happy to respond to that if the gentleman wants to yield to me.

Mr. OBEY. I will be happy to respond to the gentleman if he wants, since I am responsible for the money in the bill.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I think when I yielded time earlier in the day, I shortchanged the gentlewoman from Arizona (Ms. Giffords) by 5 minutes. I would like to yield an additional 5 minutes of my time to her.

Mr. OBEY. Mr. Chairman, I have two remaining speakers on this side. First, I would like to redesignate the time previously allocated to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to the gentlewoman from New Hampshire (Ms. Shea-Porter) of the Education and Labor Committee, 2 minutes.