Mr. Chair, Americans' top priority is creating jobs. But six weeks into the 112th Congress, the Republican leadership has yet to bring a single, solitary jobs bill to the floor.
Once again, we are here today to exercise one of our primary constitutional responsibilities as members of Congress--to pass appropriations legislation to fund the many basic and essential programs the federal governments, on which millions of Americans rely. Today is an incredible opportunity, for Republicans and Democrats to work together--to bridge the gap between parties and talking points--and pass a bill that meets our shared goals of creating jobs, building our infrastructure, and strengthening our economy.
Sadly, the Republican leaders have brought to the floor a continuing resolution that jeopardizes American jobs and our economic future by rolling back investments that will help our private sector grow and put people back to work. It thoughtlessly makes extreme cuts to appease an extreme wing of their party, at the expense of the American people.
Mr. Chair, building an excellent public education system that provides each and every child the opportunity to succeed is the single greatest investment we can make to secure our nation's future--an investment that I have devoted much of my life to support and achieve. From Preschool to K-12 to Higher Education, Republican cuts would undermine our global economic standing by denying opportunity to students, who depend on the government for their education.
As President Obama said in his state of the union address, it's not just about ``how we cut'' but ``what we cut.'' Education is an investment in our future, and we can't sacrifice our future. But Republicans--through this CR--seem willing to sacrifice our future to meet their arbitrary campaign pledge.
They want to drastically reduce quality preschool for poor children with a $1 billion cut in Head Start, which has shown positive results. For K-12 students, Republicans are proposing to dismantle a wide range of essential school supports--literacy programs; teacher improvements; math and science partnerships; arts in education; parent education; counseling; and graduation promotion.
Their proposal would also slash special education services and college preparation. And many more students would be blocked from going to college if the Republicans had their way--with about half a billion dollars less for Pell grants for disadvantaged youth.
Education is how America can reclaim our edge in job creation, in business leadership, in providing a livable wage, and in economic innovation. Destroying this promise by attempting to balance the budget on the backs of poor children and youth is both unwise and unjust.
By cutting to the heart of the learning needs of America's children and youth through these extraordinary and nonsensical measures, Republican lawmakers clearly don't understand the meaning of investing in our future.
This CR arbitrarily kills jobs, hurts the public health and is a slap in the face of environmental protection. The CR will set our country back decades by curtailing scientific research, simply because Republican's don't like what the science says. It puts our children's health at risk by handcuffing the EPA to police polluters and simply keeps us addicted to foreign oil and discourages clean energy innovations. This is sound bite politics at its worst, the American public needs real solutions and thoughtful policy.
The CR prohibits any funding from being used to carry out the EPA's power plant pollution safeguard rules. These rules are tailored to only the biggest polluting power plants, ensuring average Americans and small business aren't affected by any regulations.
The Clean Air Act guards the most vulnerable Americans--those with asthma and other lung disease, children, older adults, and people with heart disease and diabetes--from the dangers of airborne pollutants, including the threats from growing carbon dioxide pollution. Each year the Act prevents tens of thousands of adverse health effects, including asthma attacks, heart attacks and even premature death. This year alone, the Clean Air Act will save more than 160,000 lives, according to preliminary estimates by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Yet Republicans plan to starve this life-saving agency of its funding based on purely ideological reasons.
The CR would cut all funding for immigrant integration. Republicans claim that they support legal immigration and want to reward immigrants who waited in line and did things the right way. But then they go and cut funding to critical programs that help those legal immigrants become proud American citizens and better integrated into our communities. If Republicans really want to support legal immigrants, they wouldn't cut important programs that emphasize the value of learning English, learning American history and civics, and becoming U.S. citizens. Regardless of what side of the aisle you sit on, these are commonsense programs that we can all support.
It would also cut overseas refugee assistance and admissions and domestic refugee assistance funding. These cuts would severely diminish our country's ability to help refugees across the globe. The victims would be some of the world's most vulnerable people: refugees fleeing religious persecution from Iran, political persecution from Burma, etc. We are the global leader in refugee resettlement. This is a proud American legacy and it makes us a shining beacon for the world. Haphazard cuts like this endanger refugees, but also America.
If Republicans truly claim to be committed to deficit reduction, then why as they cut millions from beneficial programs like head start and LIHEAP, do they continue to increase defense spending? Until Republicans get serious about controlling defense spending--the largest part of the discretionary budget--they will never achieve their goals of reducing our deficit.
Mr. Chair, at the state and local level, my home state of Colorado is getting slapped in the face by this CR.
A year ago, US 36--the highway that connects Boulder to Denver--was awarded a $10 Million TIGER/TIFIA Challenge Grant through the recovery Act--to expand one of the most used and heavily congested highways in the state, creating jobs and fostering economic development. The $10 million federal investment helps leverage the additional funds in the area, creating $276 million in employment income and 7,200 jobs. The project impacts 191,000 corridor employees--10% of the state's employment.
To date, only $900k has been obligated, and because the Republican CR rescinds all `unobligated' ARRA funding across the board without thought to details or individual projects--the many state, regional, and local transportation groups that have invested in the project will never see the remaining $9.1 million they were promised.
For the businesses and residents in my district--this is a slap in the face.
Colorado's US 36 Corridor project won the TIGER Award because it was one of the most innovative projects in the country. Mr. Chair, Rome wasn't built in a day and we can all agree that we should not be punishing innovation.
Mr. Chair, the President's budget release yesterday is an excellent example of cutting back in nearly every aspect of the federal government, while investing in the future. We must tighten our belts and make hard choices and tough changes. But we cannot do so at the expense of growth and innovation.
With cuts like these, Republican leadership has made it very clear that they're not interested in helping families to get ahead in this economy. Instead, they're holding our economic recovery and global competitiveness hostage in an attempt to meet an arbitrary spending goal, to appease the fringe of their party--the same people who advocate for cutting the Department of Education and privatizing social security.
The Republican's continuing resolution before us today is sound bite politics at its worst. The American Public need and deserve real solutions and thoughtful policy. We can and must do better. I encourage my colleagues to oppose the rule for this CR as well as the underlying CR to prevent the irresponsible impact of this Republican spending bill.
