Funding Cuts

Floor Speech

Madam Speaker, we are facing some very important and difficult decisions in the coming weeks as we debate both the continuing resolution and the President's budget. I would like to talk just a little bit about some of the decisions that we have to make today as we discuss this this morning.

As some of my colleagues have already mentioned, the proposed continuing resolution that the Republicans have put on the table has draconian cuts that will not move our country forward. Whether it's cuts to the National Institutes of Health and investigating important research that we have before us, cuts to our infrastructure or education, arts and culture, cuts to our police protection and fire protection in our home communities, this budget does not do what the American people need, and it will not move us forward.

The proposed continuing resolution has made one particular cut that I want to discuss in more detail. For a party that refers to itself as ``the party of jobs'' and says they want to move the economy forward, I am very disturbed to see that they are slashing the funding for the Economic Development Administration, and I am here to say that doing so will pull the rug out from the very people who are creating jobs and helping turn our economy around.

Last year, I brought the administrator of the Economic Development Administration to Maine; and he saw firsthand, as he well knew, how EDA funding could help make it possible to build a new freezer facility in the city of Portland. This is a critical infrastructure improvement for our already struggling Maine fishermen. This would make it possible so that they would not have to send their catch off to another State or even another country to be processed. If we can build that freezer in Portland, hundreds of jobs could be created, and our working waterfronts could be strengthened.

Also in Maine, the community of Brunswick has been hit by BRAC, a base closure; and they have worked long and hard to develop economic development opportunities that will strengthen that community and reuse the base. They have successfully attracted exciting new projects, including an aircraft manufacturing facility using carbon fiber, high-technology materials and the highest technology in new engineering and building on the site of the former air base.

But those projects and the hundreds of jobs that they will create are counting on the EDA funding to help transform what was once a former Navy base into a civilian economic engine. The economy is just starting to turn around, and eliminating the critical investments we need to keep it going is the last thing we should be doing right now.

I want to say a couple of things too about the President's budget. The President has put forward a budget on the table that does many of the things that we need to have done: investing in infrastructure, science and technology, education, the very kinds of things that will make our country competitive and move us forward. There are many good things in this budget, whether it's eliminating the tax breaks for big oil companies, or no further extensions of tax cuts for the wealthy, or making sure we do increase the Economic Development Administration and invest in economic development.

Investing in health care, continuing to implement the health care reform bill where we are putting money into the critical training of 4,000 more primary care providers--I know that's a huge need in my State and so many other States--as well as working to move forward on the permanent fix to the SGR so that our physicians are adequately reimbursed.

Investments in housing, making sure that the homeless veterans are no longer on the streets anymore and that people have more choices to move forward in housing. Eliminating tax breaks for big oil companies. Making our commercial buildings more efficient, even cutting defense in strategic ways. Up to $78 billion in wasteful spending is cut out of the President's budget. Cutting of the alternative engine for the F-35, which is just wasteful, unnecessary while at the same time he is making sure that our military personnel get a pay raise and that they are recognized and supported.

I do need to discuss one issue in the President's budget that will be a problem for my constituents in Maine. The President's budget proposes to cut LIHEAP funding. LIHEAP funding helps nearly 70,000 Maine households make ends meet by offsetting home heating costs. Funding is especially important for Maine. We have some of the country's oldest housing stock, and we are heavily dependent on oil for heating. In fact, we are the most dependent State in the Nation on oil heat.

The cost of heating oil is going up, from a low of about $2.25 at the beginning of the economic downturn to about $3.35 now. Maine communities are still struggling in the down economy. Slashing funding for this program would not be appropriate, and it must be changed in the President's budget.

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