|
Tuesday, September 25, 2002
Gephardt Floor Statement on the Failed Republican Agenda in the 107th Congress: the Unfinished Agenda for a Secure Future for all Americans
(as delivered)
Click here
to view charts
used during this speech (.pdf)
�Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge the Republican leadership to address the unfinished business of the American people�s agenda. The House has a lot of work to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. In America today, millions of hard-working families face challenges in their daily lives.
Challenges
�Since Jan. 2001, our nation�s economy has deteriorated dramatically, and this House has failed to provide real relief to the families who need it most.
�We�ve seen the most anemic period of economic growth since Eisenhower was president. In 18 months, the stock market lost $4.5 trillion in value; more than two million people have lost their jobs. A wave of corporate scandals has eroded people�s fundamental faith in our nation�s free markets, and scores of corporations have become bankrupt. Consumer confidence dropped in each of the last four months and is at the lowest level since November 2001.
�Our nation�s retirement security system has also been undermined.
�In 18 months, Republican economic policies have taken $2 trillion from the Social Security trust fund. Baby boomers� retirement benefits have been jeopardized.
�In each of the last few years, prescription drug prices have soared more than 10 percent. Reliable prescription drug coverage eludes almost two-thirds of all Medicare recipients. On a daily basis, senior citizens face a choice between buying food, paying the rent or buying their medicine. Senior citizens slice pills into halves because they can�t afford their full prescriptions.
�Faced with these challenges, the House Republican leadership has failed to address people�s kitchen table concerns. In the last 18 months, this leadership passed an agenda that satisfied the special interests, misled the American people and dismissed the interests of America�s hard-working families. But for bipartisan action after the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks, Republicans amassed a record of non-achievement in this 107th Congress and failed to make a real difference in people�s lives.
The Economy
�On the economy, Republicans have demonstrated a devotion to special interest driven tax cuts.
�In 2001, in a mammoth tax cut giveaway, Republicans gave the lion�s share of the breaks to those who least needed tax relief. The Republican economic agenda turned record surpluses into deep deficits for the decade ahead. The only surplus that�s left after they�ve squandered Social Security.
�The Republican economic plan rejected the fundamental values that in the nineties propelled the longest economic expansion ever recorded: opportunity, responsibility and community.
�In a so-called stimulus bill, the Republican agenda even tried to give Enron a $254 million tax break. For the economic victims of the Sept. 11th attacks, the Republican agenda blocked the extension of unemployment benefits legislation for five months. For people who had lost jobs in this Republican recession, the Republican agenda blocked the extension of health care benefits legislation. This ideological agenda has blocked a very modest minimum wage increase, even though in the five years since the last increase, the minimum wage�s real value has fallen 11 percent.
�This agenda has done almost nothing positive for America. It has instead led to large layoffs, weakened America�s manufacturing sector, and helped produce big losses in people�s pensions, IRAs, and mutual funds across the board.
�Faced with this mounting tide of bad economic news, Republicans continue to support more special interest tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals. In April, in the middle of a recession, they voted to extend provisions in the spring 2001 tax cut bill that would not take effect until 2011.
�Think about it.
�As families faced financial hardships, the Republican majority wasted valuable time trying to cut taxes for the wealthiest individuals starting 10 years from now in 2011.
�In recent weeks, they have wasted the House�s time and people�s money, passing the exact same tax cut all over again. Republicans sliced their 10-year enrichment plan for the wealthy into individual tax cut pieces in order to distract attention from the absence of a real agenda that would address America� real problems. The sole passion of House Republicans has been to reward their wealthy political clientele for the next decade and beyond at the expense of every other need of the American people.
�Republicans pass one press release after the next and abdicate their responsibility to lead America. They seek to create the illusion of real-life, legislative progress on America�s real problems where none exists.
�Perhaps most telling about their inability to carry out their responsibility to govern is that, to date, not a single spending bill has been sent to the President just one week before the new fiscal year begins. In fact, since the August recess, this House has failed to pass a single spending bill. And it�s the House that must originate this important budgetary legislation.
�Republicans are failing at this most basic task because their misguided economic plan is starving important investments we can and must make in our families' futures, especially in educating our children. Their budget plan would force 50,000 kids from after-school programs that keep children safe. Republicans will leave children trailing behind in America. In fact, because some Republican moderates understand cuts will have to be made, they have been unable to bring key bills to the floor; and now their strategy appears to be delay, delay, delay until after the November elections to avoid voters� wrath.
�This week, the House will have to pass the first of what will probably be several Continuing Resolutions to try to fund the federal government.
�Republicans are simply kicking the can down the road, looking ahead to a possible lame duck session to fix their budget problems, while they continue to deny the consequences of this deeply misguided economic plan.
�A lame duck session deprives voters of the legislative information to make an informed decision. And by delaying key spending decisions, Republicans are depriving critical resources to public schools, hospitals, homeland security, among other priorities. The House should not adjourn before holding a full debate on all of these spending bills and priorities.
�People deserve common sense solutions to the challenges that confront them.
�That�s why I hope Republicans will, at last, accept our offer to convene a bipartisan economic growth summit to put together a plan that will cut the budget deficits, bring back responsibility and discipline, and get us back on the path to long-term economic growth and opportunity. Even now as we consider a resolution to go to war, there is an unwillingness to reconsider Republican economic and budget decisions made more than one year ago before September 11, 2001.
�Furthermore, Democrats support a 21st Century energy agenda that creates jobs, protects the environment and expands the economic pie for all of us; education investments to create the best trained, most highly skilled workforce on the planet; a minimum wage increase for hard-working families; and a second round of extended unemployment benefits because for over one million people, their benefits have been exhausted; and by December, 1.5 million people will be in this position.
Social Security
�Second, this House must have a free and fair debate about our nation�s Social Security future.
�Despite repeated promises to safeguard the surplus, the Republican leadership passed an economic plan that diverted $2 trillion from Social Security into other, non-Social Security initiatives. Putting special interest tax cuts first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth, Republicans broke our commitment to save Social Security first, and jeopardized the baby boomers� Social Security benefits.
�Social Security is the greatest retirement security program ever conceived. Social Security puts food on people�s table, shelter over people�s heads; it spells the difference between poverty and dignity in the lives of millions of senior citizens, surviving spouses, and people with disabilities. It represents the largest, most reliable income source for middle-income senior citizens.
�Republicans have at least five plans to privatize and cut Social Security benefits. These schemes make it clear: either Republicans will have to cut benefits, divert trillions of dollars from other, as yet-unspecified programs, or they will have to do both things. According to one study, senior citizens, surviving spouses and people with disabilities would see benefit cuts between 30 and 46 percent annually if the Republican privatization proposals get enacted.
�Therefore, I can think of few more crucial priorities than a full Social Security debate with a spotlight shining on Republicans� privatization schemes.
�I am deeply disappointed that House Republicans seemingly don�t want this debate and they don�t want this vote. The Republican leadership is doing everything possible to sweep Social Security under the carpet until after the November elections. They understand just how unpopular their privatization agenda has become, especially since the near-record drop in the stock market of the last months.
�The American people have a right to know the consequences that flow from this decision. They deserve a frank, honest discussion about all of the Republicans� Social Security, privatization proposals. As elected leaders, it is our obligation and responsibility to hold this discussion before the November elections, so that the people can decide Social Security�s future.
Prescription Drugs
�In addition, Republicans must complete the unfinished business of the American people�s prescription drugs agenda. Right now, they are trying to run out the clock on the crucial challenge of prescription drug prices.
�I�ve talked to hundreds of senior citizens who have urged the Congress to cut prescription drug prices down so hard-working families could afford them. In this Congress, Republicans failed these families while protecting the profits of the biggest drug makers that support their campaigns.
�In July, Republicans passed a sham bill written by the prescription drug lobby. They refused even to let us vote on our Democratic alternative. They rejected a real Medicare prescription drug benefit rooted in the right values: a benefit available and affordable to all, and 100 percent available, reliable and guaranteed.
�The Republican bill represented a fraud and a farce. It is not even worth the paper it was written on. It covered barely a fraction of America�s senior citizens, put the benefit in the hands of private insurance companies, and took a dangerous first step toward privatizing Medicare. On a party-line vote, it passed the House.
�Days later, I was in Missouri and I saw commercials underwritten by the pharmaceutical lobby. The spots praised Republican candidates for supporting the Republican prescription drug bill fraud. That bill secured the profit priorities of our nation�s drug makers over, and at the expense of, our nation�s senior citizens.
�It is the same special interest, Republican storyline on the issue of prescription drug prices.
�This summer, the Senate, 78 to 21, passed a good, bipartisan bill that will close loopholes used by drug makers to stifle competition, keep prescription drug prices high and maximize industry profits. This simple legislative step could cut prescription drug prices by about 60 percent. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, it would save consumers $60 billion in prescription drug prices each year.
�In the House, Democrats are circulating a petition to discharge the Senate-passed bill because Republicans also refuse to debate this.
�Not surprisingly, the pharmaceutical lobby is starting an advertising blitz attacking the Senate bill, scaring people with the canard that if this bill is enacted, somehow, magically, medical and pharmaceutical advances will come to a grinding halt.
�The drug companies continue to fund Republican campaigns as a reward for Republicans� actions and inactions on this high-priority agenda item. The special interests can afford to pay for this largess: Since January, the big drug makers earned more than $37 billion in prescription drug sales.
�On this issue, the special interests have seized and controlled the agenda. Before adjournment, we must make this the people�s House again -we must not let it be the pharmaceutical companies� corporate subsidiary. We should, and we must, vote in this Congress to lower prescription drug prices for all Americans.
Corporate Accountability
�Preventing more corporate scandals and bringing criminals to justice is the fourth piece of unfinished business here in the House. Again, the reality, the sad reality, is that special interests have guided the Republican response to the whole basket of corporate accountability issues.
�Under Republican leadership, thousands of Americans lost their jobs due to corporate misbehavior. In recent months, Arthur Andersen fired 7,000 people; Global Crossing fired over 9,000 employees; WorldCom fired over 20,000, and Enron fired 4,500 people. This is not part of a normal business cycle, to say the least.
�In recent months, people�s pensions lost $210 billion, and state pensions lost $4 billion combined when WorldCom and Enron stock plummeted because their books had been cooked.
�In response to these awful, mind-numbing developments, House Republicans passed watered-down, special interest legislation to create the appearance of action when the truth was a failed Republican deregulatory agenda.
�Republicans blocked accounting industry reform for months until the pressures became so great they had no choice but capitulation. Republicans refused to impose stiff penalties on employers who mislead employees about the value of company stock. They failed to punish CEOs who run their companies into the ground. They blocked our efforts to eliminate tax breaks and federal contracts that corporations still today receive by relocating overseas to avoid paying American taxes.
�In April, Republicans passed a pension reform bill that failed to protect pensions from corporate abuse and indiscretions. One House Republican even acknowledged that the bill �does little to protect people�s pensions.� It failed to give employees control over their nest eggs and retirement plans. It treated executive pensions better than employee pensions, maintaining two sets of rules. It offered employees no legal remedies when companies abused people�s 401(k)s.
�Now I believe America has the greatest, most vibrant free enterprise system on the face of the planet. But, for the sake of every consumer, every CEO, every employee and every investor, we must create one set of rules for all, reward hard work with fair play, and ensure that corporate criminals will pay the price.
�I will continue to stand on this floor and fight for a comprehensive Business, Employees� and Investors� Bill of Rights. Let�s get it done today and restore people�s faith after what has happened to their precious savings.
Meaningless Resolutions
�Sadly, the Republican response to all these challenges is to �run out the clock� on the Congress, as one newspaper wrote over the weekend. I saw a headline just yesterday calling the Republican agenda, an �Avoidance Agenda.� I quote Bob Novak: �Apart from the war on terrorism, the Republican Party,� he says, �flinches from standing for much of anything in the 2002 election.�
�To retain their majority, Republican leaders have created a playbook that reveals the failed Republican agenda and mocks the priorities of our constituents. In recent weeks, even with misguided bills, Republicans seem incapable of taking any action. Republicans pulled an education tax bill, pulled the bankruptcy conference report; now, they waste time and over $100,000 a day in the people�s money, according to one calculation, passing press release bills, one more obvious than the next.
�The �Non-Sense of the House Resolutions,� as I like to call them, will make zero impact on people�s lives. The same can be said for other, well-meaning resolutions that represent the lion�s share of the legislative agenda with House Republicans in the majority.
�In this session, the House has passed at least 40 suspension bills to bestow names on post offices. Under Republican leadership, this House has considered the following resolutions, among others: �Supporting the Goals of the Year of the Rose�; �Honoring the Invention of Modern Air-conditioning�; recognizing �the Significant Contributions of Paul Ecke, Jr. to the Poinsettia Industry, and for other purposes.� Ensuring �Continuity for the Design of the 5-cent Coin, Establishing the Coin Design Advisory Committee, and for other purposes.�
�At the rate we�re going nobody�s going to have any coins to redesign if we don�t get this economy straightened out.
�This House is becoming irrelevant because people�s kitchen table priorities are not being addressed on a constructive and bipartisan basis.
�Instead of wasting time on empty, meaningless gestures and then voting to allow the president's plans to privatize Social Security to take effect; sheltering unpatriotic off-shore corporate tax havens from paying their fair share of taxes; blocking campaign reform; passing the largest gift to the wealthy in the history of this nation in the form of massive tax breaks -- without even considering a new economic plan; passing a gift to Enron and other oil and gas interests through a �dirty� Eneergy Bill; delaying and bending to corporate interests in addressing the corporate scandals and protecting pensions; delaying and then undoing the strong air safety rules Congress enacted to safeguard the public in the aftermath of Sept. 11th, Republicans should have been working with Democrats to address the American people�s unfinished and important business.
�The American people want us to raise the minimum wage, protect investor rights, enact job training, pass Medicare prescription drugs, cut prescription drug prices and extend unemployment benefits.
�People also want us to reform our elections and voting apparatus to ensure that every vote counts and that what happened in 2000 and 2002 in Florida and elsewhere never, ever happens again.
�People want us to enact a real Patients� Bill of Rights with teeth and effectiveness and not the sham Republican legislation that�s languishing in waiting to go to conference.
�They want us to help school districts across America get class size down to 18 students in each classroom.
�They want us to pass school construction to promote safety in every public school, create a stable learning environment, and meet the staggering backlog of unmet school construction needs.
�People want us to close the pay gap between men and women.
�They want us to overturn new White House rules and restore real medical privacy protections to every American patient.
�They want us to make polluters, not taxpayers, foot the clean-up bill and maintain the superfund program that cleans up toxic waste.
�They want us to enhance our hate crimes law and provide more resources to states and local jurisdictions to help investigate and prosecute these heinous crimes.
�They want us to reinstate worker safety protections to prevent repetitive stress injuries in the workplace. Just to name a few.
�This agenda is worthy of the American people�s highest dreams and hopes for their families.
�It�s worthy of people�s real concerns that are there on a day to day basis.
�It is incumbent upon us all to stop wasting time in this House, to stop being irrelevant to the people�s real agenda, to get about the business of the American people�s domestic security agenda. Let�s do it on a bipartisan basis. Let�s enact an agenda that creates opportunity for all to fulfill their potential. Let�s not adjourn before it is done. Let�s get to work.�
-- Richard A. Gephardt, 9/24/02
For more news from Leader Gephardt,
click here
for The Leader's Daily News, a daily news briefing from Leader Gephardt's
website
| 