Volume 163, No. 76 covering the 1st Session of the 115th Congress (2017 - 2018) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H3316-H3320 on May 3, 2017.
More than half of the Agency's employees are engineers, scientists and protection specialists. The Climate Reality Project, a global climate activist organization, accused Agency leadership in the last five years of undermining its main mission.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Francis Rooney of Florida). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Pocan) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, I am here on behalf of the Progressive Caucus, which is the largest values-based caucus within the Democratic Party--74 members strong--who are helping to lead the legislative arm of the resistance in this country.
We, every year, put forth a Progressive Caucus budget, which is really a statement of the values of the Progressive Caucus and the values of the American people. This year, this week, we released our budget. But before I talk about it, let me just take a step back.
One of the things that people have asked us to do, asked so many of our Progressive Caucus members in this Congress to do, is to really fight and to lead the resistance here in Washington, D.C. And we are fighting many of the bad ideas that get proposed, from the idea of having a wall on the Mexican border to the terrible tax plan that is going to cost tens of millions of people access to health care, to a tax plan that is going to lower rates for the wealthiest in the country and leave the working class and those aspiring to be in the working class without any benefits.
The cuts that the Trump administration has proposed in their budget, there is just so many bad things, day after day, sometimes hour after hour, in Washington, D.C., that happens. And it is the Congressional Progressive Caucus that is largely leading many of those fights, saying no to the bad ideas. But it is not enough to just say no. We also have to have a positive, progressive alternative so that the American people can see there is a true alternative.
You don't have to just go by the policies of this administration. You don't have to go down the path that really leaves so many people out so that the top 1 or 2 percent can continue to benefit. And that is exactly what the Congressional Progressive Caucus is doing.
So when we put forth a Congressional Progressive Caucus budget, it is a comprehensive budget that lays out the values of the American people from everything from education, to infrastructure, to health care, to our Nation's security. It is a document that we use throughout the year to put forth positive, progressive ideas to show that there is an alternative. You don't have to follow the ideas that have come forth from the Republican majority in this House and the President.
Let me just start by talking about the Republican budget, the budget that Donald Trump has proposed in his skinny budget he released a while ago. He will be producing a more in-depth budget, but he laid out the fundamental foundation of what his budget is going to look like. That budget is a budget that has no additional revenue. It has $54 billion of additional spending for the military, and because it has no additional revenue, it has cuts to almost every other program that we see, and these are deep cuts--20, 30 percent cuts--to all sorts of agencies.
So let me share a little bit about what that budget looks like, and then I will offer the contrast of what the Congressional Progressive Caucus has put forward and why it means so much to have that budget in place.
First of all, that $54 billion increase means you are going to have to have a lot of cuts to a lot of other areas in the budget, and let me just point a few of those out. One that means a lot to my district, and I represent the people of south central Wisconsin, but it means a lot to everyone across the country, is funding for the National Institutes of Health, NIH.
That is the area where that funding goes to researchers across the country who are finding cures for diseases so that we can live longer, and better, and have healthier lives, and it is essential funding. That is so important that, in the last Congress, one of the few things we got done in a bipartisan way is, we did additional funding for the National Institutes of Health.
Just today, in the Omnibus bill to get us through funding through September 30 of this year, we upped funding in a bipartisan way for the National Institutes of Health, because we, in a bipartisan way, value the work they do. In President Trump's budget, there is a $6 billion cut--almost 20 percent of that budget--that would happen, threatening all sorts of research across the country.
For the Department of Education, there is a 13 percent cut, but that is not just a 13 percent cut. That cut would be even deeper if you didn't count the hundreds of millions of dollars put into taxpayer funds going into private schools. It would be more like an 18 or 19 percent cut, but it is huge cuts.
Just in higher education alone, Pell grants--something that I was fortunate enough to have--I grew up in a lower middle class family, and I was fortunate enough to get loans, and work through college, and get some Pell grants to help me so I could attend college. There is a $4 billion cut just in that line item. So clearly, there is not the attention to education from the K-12 level or higher education in that budget.
Programs like Head Start and others are devastated in the pre-K level. So there are a lot of problems with President Trump's budget for education. When you get to transportation, there is a 13 percent cut--
$2.4 billion--everything from Amtrak, to dollars going to other rail programs and transit programs, investment programs that help people in rural areas, TIGER grants for highway projects, and more.
In energy, we see the nonnuclear weapon portion of the energy budget, a cut by 18 percent below the current level, and that contains programs like LIHEAP that helps provide assistance to low-income seniors in winter. Now, maybe a low-income senior in winter in Arizona isn't experiencing the same thing they are in Wisconsin, or Michigan, or Pennsylvania, or New York, or a lot of our States, but it gets cold. And sometimes those heating bills can really sock a senior who is on a limited income. That money is just vital to them being able to live in their homes.
It completely cuts the Community Development Block Grant program. That is things like housing programs, Meals on Wheels. I had the good fortune of going around my district and delivering Meals on Wheels about a year ago to constituents one day.
It is not just that you are providing a nourishing meal to seniors who often can't get out of their homes, who this is the only place they may get that nourishing meal, but it is also a check-in to make sure that they are all right. Some are still living by themselves, and often you don't know if you don't have that visit to be able to check in. It would cut programs like that completely from getting any Federal funds.
At the Environmental Protection Agency, environmental programs, 50 programs would be eliminated, and 31.4 percent of their budget would be gutted for all sorts of things that protect our clean air and clean water--programs like the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative or the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Initiative. So many areas would be cut through that funding, and that just doesn't make any sense.
This is a time that we have the Flint, Michigans of the world, and we are finding that more and more communities with aging infrastructure of their waterways are having lead in their water and other contaminants. This is not the time to be cutting a program that watches out for this by 31 percent; and on, and on.
There are so many cuts that affect real people. So while maybe it is good for the defense contractors to get $54 billion because, trust me, that money is not going to be shared with the people who actually protect our country.
I was talking to another Member of Congress recently whose son is in the military making $22,000 a year. I can guarantee you that $54 billion is not going to be targeted to truly improve what that person is doing, what they are getting paid as they fight for our country to protect our country, but it is going to go to a bunch of new weapons systems and other things that allow the money that, again, is going to go to that top 1 and 2 percent in this Nation.
So let me offer what that contrasts. Instead of putting 54 billion new dollars into defense and cutting all of those programs I talked about by huge amounts--20, 30 percent, our State Department, 28 percent, go down the list, huge cuts--we actually invest in this country, and we invest in multiple levels.
The People's Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance--that is what we call it--does a whole lot of different things. Let me just highlight some of what we put forward this week, along with 60 organizations, major organizations that are endorsing the efforts that we put forward.
First of all, we have a $2 trillion investment in our Nation's infrastructure; $2 trillion that is going into programs to modernize our roads and bridges; modernize our water and sewer systems, our ports and waterways; investing in our transit systems; investing in our K-12 school reconstruction; investing in high-speed broadband infrastructure that we need so desperately in our rural parts of the country; investing in the VA hospitals and extended-care facilities; and investing in the actual workers who are going to do these projects.
This alone is a $2 trillion investment, and, throughout this budget, it is estimated, by the Economic Policy Institute, would create 2.4 million new jobs in this country, good family supporting wages, while we are reinvesting in our Nation's bridges, and roads, and schools, and broadband, and other infrastructure. That is a key part of what we have put out there, and it is what is needed in this country.
We have to invest in our country, and this budget does just that. We also look at taxes in a very different way, and we rewrite the rules in a system that often seems rigged against the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class.
We close loopholes for big corporations that send jobs overseas. We stop CEOs from receiving millions in tax-free bonuses, and we tackle income and equality by having fair tax rates--fair for those who are working, and sharing a little more for those who are the wealthiest in this country. We level the playing field for the working families across this country.
In this budget, we also have a new initiative to invest $1 trillion into childcare, childcare for everyone who needs it, pre-K education in this country. There is no question, we know more people are working more and working more jobs, but you can't if you don't have someone to watch your children when you are doing that.
Having this in place will allow us to make sure that those crucial years in education that really develop you for often the rest of your educational experience--K-12 and higher education--we have a plan to truly invest in every single person so that no one is paying more than 10 percent of their income for childcare.
It is not just that. We are funding K-12 schools. We are funding that infrastructure for our schools. We are making sure that people who live in rural areas have broadband so they can do the homework that you do in a modern America.
At the higher education level, we have several innovative ideas offered in our budget, from refinancing of student loans to the lowest current available rate so that you are not paying some of these high 6.6 percent interest rates that don't even make sense in today's economy, to providing for debt-free college; to make sure that if you actually work and you want to do a workstudy job, you should be able to leave a 4-year public institution debt free, and leave with a degree, compared to the $30,000 plus on average that people are leaving with now. We also tackle some of the ideas about free tuition in public institutions. So we have got some real ideas from pre-K, to K-12, to higher education.
We also make sure that we are addressing the costs of prescription drugs because that is one of the drivers as we have this debate around health care.
One of the reasons we have seen the spikes we have had is because, quite honestly, a lot of prescription drug companies have charged prices that are quite unreasonable, by any reasonable person's standards. There is no reason why the same drug you pay for in Canada or Ireland is substantially cheaper than it is in the United States.
We have measures to make sure that we can reduce the price of prescription drugs here in this country and that people don't have to make a decision between paying for their medicine or their groceries.
We also are looking at health care in another way. First of all, the Affordable Care Act, as I think now many people across this country understand and now support the concept--while they may not have supported ObamaCare, they love the Affordable Care Act. Same thing, folks.
What we are finding is, there are things we need to do to improve it. And while we look at some of those, one of those is allowing States to look at going to a single-payer system, and we provide the pathway to do that, to reduce costs and increase coverage so that even more people can have that.
We also expand access to mental health care--this is Mental Health Awareness Month in this country, and we are making sure we are doing that--and treatment for opioid addiction.
We also have a humane and comprehensive immigration reform proposal. We are not talking about building walls at a time we should be talking about building bridges. Instead, we are having sensible plans that provide for full implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the DACA program.
We preserve funding for sanctuary cities, and we prohibit any funding whatsoever to go to President Trump's wall.
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Those are just a few of the things that we have in this budget. When you contrast those deep cuts to programs that help middle class families and those aspiring to be in the middle class across the country, when you contrast it with the proactive positive alternatives we have in this budget, I think people will see that there truly is a significant difference and why we don't have to settle for something that is out there that is not going to take care of the working families in this country.
You know, a lot of people across the country talk to our Members of Congress. We see these huge attendances right now at townhalls, and every Member should be out having those townhalls. And what we are hearing from people is that they are not happy with the proposals offered by the Trump administration and by the Republicans in Congress, the healthcare proposal that they put forward that we could be voting on as early as tomorrow--the second attempt at this.
I will tell you, I have learned something very interesting. When someone doesn't want to put their name on something, in this place especially, it is usually not very good. I have found people really like to put their name on things in this town.
It's funny that the Trump administration was calling their healthcare bill RyanCare, Congress is calling it TrumpCare, people back home call it I Don't Care.
In the end, what we are finding is this is a bill that is going to cut access to 24 million people, give tax breaks of $600 billion-plus to the wealthiest in this country, the top 1 and 2 percent, to insurance companies, to Big Pharma, and other big entities. That is often what it seems like it is really about.
It is going to increase fivefold. People will be paying five times as much--older Americans--for their health care, and it cuts Medicaid to so many people who need it in this country.
Don't forget, Medicaid is not just for people who are poor and trying to get health care and trying to get work; it is also people with disabilities, it is seniors in nursing homes.
It is, quite honestly, incomprehensible that the Republicans think it is all right to cut those programs. That is their tax plan. But here is the best part: they are making it now even worse. The words we are hearing and that they are bragging about are amendments to make it so that, State by State, they can turn down things like coverage for preexisting conditions and turn down other essential health benefits, things like prescription drug care, maternal care, emergency room visits.
That is what health care is all about. If you gut everything out of health care, all you have is a shell of what you can call health care but doesn't actually provide any of the benefits.
They are doing this to bring in the Tea Party, the most conservative element of their caucus that fundamentally doesn't believe in the functioning of government. They are going to basically do that, make sure government doesn't have any say in what health care is. You will have no guarantees.
I guarantee with what they are doing--this is according to the official nonpartisan estimates by the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, not our estimates--at least 24 million people will lose care under the old proposal. Take the new proposal, and if you start adding the States being able to make those decisions, more and more people will lose access to their health care.
We will see what happens, whether or not they can get this done. I think they are having a difficult time. When we had a little conversation on the floor about it today, we noticed they didn't quite have answers about when the bill will come up. We will see what does happen with that.
But when you contrast that sort of a healthcare proposal with the fundamentals that we have in the Progressive Caucus budget, you see a stark difference. We take and expand upon the progress of the Affordable Care Act that has allowed tens of millions of people to have access.
When you look at the proposals that we put forward, there was an Economic Policy Institute article and a Washington Post article today that I will include in the Record.
The People's Budget, Not Trump's Budget, Will Help Working Americans
(By Mark Pocan)
After President Trump's first 100 days in office, it's clear that his promises to help the working class were little more than a campaign ploy. His dismantling of Obama-era regulations like the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule and deregulation of the financial industry reveal what he really cares about--lining the pockets of America's ultra-rich.
Nothing demonstrates his disdain for working people more than his budget proposal. In it, he cuts 31 percent of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)'s budget, which ensures people across the country have clean air and water, and 21 percent from Department of Labor programs that provide job training to seniors and disadvantaged youth. Instead of helping working people, Trump's budget imposes a hiring freeze on crucial federal agencies and calls for many more staff to be laid off from public sector jobs--the largest reduction in the federal workforce since World War II.
The FY 2018 People's Budget: A Roadmap for the Resistance by the Congressional Progressive Caucus stands in stark contrast to Trump's budget. The People's Budget is a plan to actually help working Americans who have felt left behind by an economy rigged against them. Our budget is a roadmap for the resistance, investing in the progressive priorities and kitchen table issues that matter to real people: infrastructure to create jobs and ensure public safety; education to help our kids reach their full potential; and sustainable energy to protect our precious environment. Progressives in Congress fully want to make investments in our future generations and protect programs that improve the lives of people every day. We believe our budget should strengthen Social Security and Medicare and invest in job growth through infrastructure, education, and research and development, while responsibly reducing our deficits and cutting wasteful spending and redundant programs where they exist.
As a business owner from Wisconsin and a long-time union member, I understand what it means to take the economic high road. It means ensuring that working people get a fair shake at economic opportunities, that the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, and that we all do better, when we all do better. I urge President Trump and Republicans in Congress to seriously consider the proposals in the People's Budget so that we can create a fairer economy.
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This New Budget Points the Way Forward for Democrats
(By James Downie)
Out of power in Washington and around the country, Democrats are struggling with how to move forward as a party. Already the jockeying for the 2020 nomination has begun. What policies the party chooses to champion will be essential to how long or short the path will be to recovery. On Tuesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus--led by Reps. Raul M. Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Keith Ellison (D-Minn.)--released its annual ``People's Budget'' for 2018. The CPC has produced a budget for years, but with the party at a crossroads, this edition may be the most important ever. Democrats should recognize its ideas as an inspiration for the party going forward.
The People's Budget starts by acknowledging a problem that most leaders acknowledge but few have addressed: the country's crumbling infrastructure. It provides $2 trillion over 10 years to repair bridges and tunnels, revitalize mass transit, replace contaminated water systems, rebuild public schools and more. Furthermore, weak wage growth and other indicators demonstrate that the economy remains short of where it was before the Great Recession, and infrastructure investment can provide badly needed jobs that will help propel the economy to new heights. The Economic Policy Institute projects that the People's Budget would add 2.4 million jobs and increase GDP by 2 percent in the near term.
The CPC's plan also addresses other crucial domestic issues. While Republicans struggle to reconcile repealing Obamacare with keeping health care affordable, the CPC puts forward actual ideas to bring the cost of health care down: The People's Budget introduces a public option--which would lower premiums--and ends the ridiculous prohibition on Medicare negotiating drug prices. The document also recognizes the dangers of climate change, puffing a price on carbon and eliminating tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry. And it funds universal pre-kindergarten and strengthens antitrust enforcement, fighting back against the oligopolies in health care, cable and other industries that are hurting Americans' pocketbooks.
Finally, the People's Budget invests in communities that need critical help. It ends funding cuts to programs such as Head Start and needs-based nutrition programs--cuts which disproportionately hurt women and people of color. It invests millions to help veterans find housing, jobs and health care. And it commits money toward fighting homelessness and funding affordable housing.
With all this spending, people may wonder what happens to the national debt, but the People's Budget reduces the debt as a percentage of GDP. In addition to the savings and the carbon pricing mentioned above, the budget raises trillions while making the tax system more fair. In addition to closing numerous loopholes for businesses and high earners, there are three major changes: restoring Clinton-era tax rates for income above $250,000 and higher rates for income over $1 million, going after companies that defer tax by sending income overseas, and reintroducing a financial transaction tax (which the United States had from 1914 to 1966). All told, these three reforms raise nearly $5 trillion over l0 years.
The People's Budget has no chance of becoming law in a GOP-controlled government. But this budget is a marker for Democrats aspiring to lead the party forward. The party is increasingly seen as out of touch, even by its own supporters. The People's Budget by contrast is built around sound policies that are also politically popular. It reflects Americans' long-standing desires for fixing the country's infrastructure, strengthening entitlements, lowering the cost of health care and making the wealthiest pay their fair share. These ideas, if adopted, could be the foundation of a rebuilt and resurgent party, and by embracing the goals of the People's Budget, Democrats can reorient toward the future.
Mr. POCAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to read a little bit from The Washington Post.
``This new budget points the way forward for Democrats.''
And what this specifically is addressing is the Progressive Caucus budget. It is looking at it and saying:
``Democrats should recognize its ideas as an inspiration for the party going forward.
``The People's Budget starts by acknowledging a problem that most leaders acknowledge but few have addressed: the country's crumbling infrastructure. It provides $2 trillion over 10 years to repair bridges and tunnels, revitalize mass transit, replace contaminated water systems, rebuild public schools and more.''
And that is what we talked about. Those are the very provisions that we put forward in that $2 trillion investment in our infrastructure.
Mr. Speaker, I will go back to reading this.
``The Economic Policy Institute projects that the People's Budget would add 2.4 million jobs and increase GDP by 2 percent in the near term.''
That is 2.4 million people with a good family-supporting job while we are rebuilding our Nation's infrastructure and increasing our Nation's gross domestic product.
What does that mean?
I have been a small-business owner for 29 years. It is the rising tide that lifts all boats. The more people that have money in their pockets that can spend it, puts money right back into the economy.
If we make sure that more people are working and more people have a family-supporting wage that they can buy a sofa, they can take their family out to dinner or to a movie, that creates more economic activity, and that creates even more jobs. That is exactly what we need in this country.
That is, again, the Economic Policy Institute projecting what our budget would do.
Mr. Speaker, let me go back to the document.
``While Republicans struggle to reconcile repealing ObamaCare with keeping health care affordable, the CPC puts forward actual ideas to bring the cost of health care down: The People's Budget introduces a public option--which would lower premiums--and ends the ridiculous prohibition on Medicare negotiating drug prices.''
Can you believe that?
We don't use our purchasing power right now to negotiate for cheaper prices for prescription drugs. There is a reason why we pay sometimes 8 more, 20 times more, than other countries for the exact same drug. It is because we are not allowed to use that purchasing power in a way that will help create that economic savings.
Mr. Speaker, I will go back to the document.
``The document also recognizes the dangers of climate change, putting a price on carbon and eliminating tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry.''
Think about it. We still subsidize gas and oil, which is one of the most profitable businesses on the planet, and we are subsidizing them with tax subsidies. We get rid of those tax subsidies.
Mr. Speaker, I will go back to the document.
``And it funds universal pre-kindergarten and strengthens antitrust enforcement, fighting back against the oligopolies in health care, cable and other industries that are hurting Americans' pocketbooks.''
These are the things that we have in our Progressive Caucus budget to make sure that real families, as you are sitting at your kitchen table trying to decide if you can afford to pay your mortgage, send your kids to college, take a family vacation this year, maybe have that one luxury of a camper or a snowmobile, only if you live up north, or a boat. Those are the things that I grew up with. I grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, like I said, in a lower middle class family. That was the existence of most everyone I knew. We are trying to make sure that that can be the existence again for every single person.
While wages have been largely flat, the economy has come back. We have just recently had a little bit of a bump in the last year or so of the Obama Presidency. We need to do more for those families.
Mr. Speaker, let me go back to this document.
``With all this spending, people may wonder what happens to the national debt. But the People's Budget reduces the debt as a percentage of GDP. In addition to the savings and the carbon pricing mentioned above, the budget raises trillions while making the tax system more fair.''
This budget actually reduces overall debt by $4 trillion between now and 2027. You don't see that out of almost any other budget proposed. Yet our budget, while investing in America and investing in Americans, we also help to turn back that crushing debt that this country has so often had and that we need to address.
Mr. Speaker, let me just finish with reading a little more of this document.
``The People's Budget, by contrast, is built around sound policies that are also politically popular. It reflects Americans' longstanding desires for fixing the country's infrastructure, strengthening entitlements, lowering the cost of health care, and making the wealthiest pay their fair share. These ideas, if adopted, could be the foundation of a rebuilt and resurgent party, and by embracing the goals of the People's Budget, the Democrats can reorient toward the future.''
Now, that is, again, an opinion out of The Washington Post today about the budget we released yesterday.
I encourage people to go to the Progressive Caucus website to learn more about this budget, to look at the work that the Economic Policy Institute has done in working the numbers of this budget, and see what the contrast can be.
You don't have to settle for second or third best. We don't just have to make sure the top 1 and 2 percent have even more, and we hope that some of that trickles down on the other 98 percent of us.
Instead, we can have a budget that invests in infrastructure and creates good jobs, that invests in our public education system from pre-K to higher education. We can have a budget that expands our healthcare opportunities so that even more people can have affordable health care and helps lower the cost of prescription drugs.
We can have a budget that does these things, and we have put that forward in the People's Budget, which is the product of the Progressive Caucus here in Congress.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the time to be on the floor of Congress to present this on behalf, again, of the 74 Members of the Progressive Caucus, the largest value-based caucus within the Democratic Party. We are proud to present this budget. This should be coming to the floor as we debate all budgets in the coming months. But we are proud to put ours out first. Let's set the standard. Let's see how we can see what the Republicans in this House will put forward, and we will see what details the President puts forward.
I can guarantee no one will have more in place for the middle class in this country and those aspiring to be in the middle class than the People's Budget that is put forward by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
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