Energy Savings and Industrial Competitiveness Act of 2013

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I am proud be a longtime member of the Foreign Relations Committee for many years. When this Benghazi tragedy occurred, the Foreign Relations Committee held hours of hearings. I sat through those hearings.

I want to say to my friends, I share their dismay that we have not caught the perpetrators. But I want to remind them that the President who caught Osama bin Laden--who killed so many of our people--was President Obama, and when he says he is going to do something he will not rest until he does it.

Secretary Clinton immediately called for an Accountability Review Board. That Accountability Review Board was not partisan. What my colleague wants to do is set up some kind of committee filled with politicians--of which I happen to be proud that I am one--but I put more faith, frankly, in the professionalism and the nonpartisanship of the Accountability Review Board.

Who headed that Accountability Review Board? Ambassador Thomas Pickering, who was first picked for public service by George H.W. Bush; and Admiral Michael Mullen, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

There are many other reasons why I oppose this. Secretary Kerry has addressed this and continues to address it. We had two classified briefings. The Select Committee on Intelligence is preparing to release a bipartisan report on the events that occurred in Benghazi and, last December, the Senate Homeland Security Committee released a bipartisan report on the security deficiencies, and the good news is: Of course as a result of this tragedy, changes have been made all over the world.

I sense there is politics here. I sense there is politics here. I do not think it is right to inject politics into such a tragedy. Therefore, I object.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, first I want to add my voice of condolence to that of Senator Murray's and say to the Navy family how heavy our hearts are and that I stand ready, any minute, any hour, any second, to work with my colleagues to make sure mentally ill people do not get their hands on weapons. As soon as we can get a breakthrough on that--and maybe on background checks--maybe we can finally do something for 90 percent of the American people who want us to.

I also want to note that Senator Inhofe and I have an ongoing dispute, though it is quite friendly, on climate change. We went through this this morning. He sees evidence that climate change is probably still a hoax, and he talks about the great news that we do not have climate change. I think you should tell that to the people in Colorado. But notwithstanding that--forget

[Page: S6575]
that--I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record four articles that appeared in the recent days about how the consensus on climate change is growing, and there is 95-percent certainty that the cause is human activity.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I want to talk about what is happening in this Congress or, better yet, what is not happening. We have to pass a continuing resolution so we can fund this government. That means all the functions--whether it is air traffic controllers, whether it is building our highways, whether it is FBI agents, whether it is paying Social Security. All the things we do--Medicare--we have to pass a continuing resolution to keep this government going--sending meat inspectors out to make sure we do not get poisoned, and the rest; you name it.

And where is the House? All spending bills have to start over there. The Republicans control it. They have not sent us a continuing resolution. We also have to make sure we pay our debts--just like all Americans--debts we voted for. Whether it is military spending, domestic spending, spending to help our farmers, spending to help recover from Hurricane Sandy, we have to pay our debts. To do that, we have to increase the debt ceiling.

October 15; it is coming. If we do not do it, if the Republicans play games, we will see a crash in the stock market. I am sure every American looks forward to that. They are not doing their work because they are obsessed--they are obsessed--with repealing a law they have tried to repeal 41 times. They are obsessed.

They tried to get it overturned in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said it is constitutional. They are trying to take away a law that is helping every American, and I am going to talk about it. They are obsessed.

They refuse to understand that raising the debt ceiling is not about future spending, it is about past spending. So their reason is, they are very upset about the Affordable Care Act--or ObamaCare, however you want to call it--and they are very upset about the deficit, which has come down by half from its height with this President's leadership.

Here is the thing: I do a lot of speaking to youngsters in school. When I explain to them what the role of a Senator is, I say, in essence, it is to make life better for the people--that is what I think it is--and to do it in a smart way, and to work with your colleagues to make sure you can compromise and get things done. Whether it is building highways or making sure our ports are dredged or funding the military, we must work together. No one gets everything he or she wants. That is life. You have to compromise. You cannot be an ideologue and say: My way or the highway.

To go after a law that was passed years ago--that you tried to repeal 41 times and failed, that you tried to overturn in the Court and failed--and then not to do your most fundamental responsibility of keeping the government open? There is something really wrong about this.

Let's take a look at this economy. Why are they so upset at what the President has been able to achieve?

President Clinton left office with a surplus--over $200 billion. Remember that.

Eight years later, President Bush left office with a $1.3 trillion deficit. I will not go into why because I do not have the time, but that is the fact, and no one can erase it from the books.

Since President Obama took office, the projected annual deficit has been cut in half. It is less than $650 billion. Yet they are willing to shut the government down by making believe no progress has been made, when we have cut the deficit in half and we are trying to get out of a disastrous recession.

Under the Clinton administration, the economy created more than 20 million private sector jobs. Under George W. Bush, we lost 665,000 jobs.

Remember, Clinton, millions of jobs created; George Bush, the Republican, hundreds of thousands of private sector jobs lost.

Under President Obama, we have added 3.9 million private sector jobs--coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. You can say what you want, but President Obama and the Democrats here--even though it has been a bear to do it--we have managed to wrap our arms around this recession and get us on a course.

How about housing? Home prices are up more than 12 percent over the last year. Home sales have increased 47 percent since their crisis low. Recent housing starts are up 75 percent from April 2009.

Housing was the cause of this recession. People sliced and diced mortgages and sold them on Wall Street and brought everything down. Deregulation; that was the Republican mantra. It went too far, and we lost our way, and people suffered through the worst recession since the Great Depression.

The Republicans, instead of working with us to keep the progress up, want to shut the government down, want to say we are not going to pay our bills, even though they voted to rack up those bills.

Look at the auto industry. In 2009, the auto industry lost more than 100,000 jobs. Rescuing the auto industry saved more than 1 million jobs, and the news is great coming out of Detroit. People are buying cars.

The Republicans put it all at risk by shutting down the government and not paying the bills.

There are going to be no more bailouts. I was so proud. I offered the first amendment. I think my friend remembers: No more government bailouts to the big banks. So we are on our way to saying, once and for all, we are not going to let this crisis happen again.

The stock market. Do you know the Dow fell to 6,500, Mr. President? Since then, it has rebounded to 15,000--almost 2,000 points above its precrisis record. But yet they will put it all at risk because they are saying they are going to play games, shut down the government, not pay the debt.

The last time they played these games--the Republicans--GAO found that threatening to breach the debt limit cost the Treasury $1.3 billion just in 2011, and $18 billion over the next 10 years.

The next time a Republican tells you how fiscally conservative they are, ask them why it is they added $18 billion to the debt by playing games with the debt ceiling.

I want to quote Republican President Ronald Reagan, one of the heroes of my friends' party. He said:

The full consequences of a default--or even the serious prospect of default--by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate. Denigration of the full faith and credit of the United States would have substantial effects on the domestic financial markets and the value of the dollar.

That is Ronald Reagan. In 1983 he said that even talking about a default had terrible consequences. They are not even talking about a default, they are planning for a default.

My friend, who is such a great leader in the Senate, Senator Durbin, informed us and Senator Reid informed us that the Republicans in the House have a bill they love. We call it Pay China First. If there is a default, they will keep paying China the interest we owe them, but they will default on all of the Americans here and all of the contractors, the highway contractors, the people who dredge our ports. They will default on what they owe the American people, but they will pay China.

[Page: S6578]
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the CBO Director under George W. Bush, said:

It's a bad idea. Little defaults, big defaults; default's a bad idea period and there should be no one who believes otherwise.

He said that in 2011. There is no such thing as a good default.

I have shown how far we have come with this economy. If we do not have the far right of the Republican Party taking America's country hostage, we will continue to grow this economy. But if they play games and try to shut down this government, it could all turn around. If they play games and they try to default on the debt, they could turn it all around in a bad way, and we will see the results as Social Security recipients start to worry, as Medicare receipts start to worry, as contractors start to worry, as Federal FBI agents can no longer get paid--it goes on and on and on.

One of the reasons they are so crazed is they are obsessed over the Affordable Care Act, which they call ObamaCare. In my time, I want to tell you what the Affordable Care Act does and see whether you think it is worth shutting down the government over this bill. They tried it 41 times, but they hope 42 will be their winner. Over 1 million Californians--this is just in my State--are already newly insured. Three million young adults are now insured on their parents' plans--3 million are now insured, 400,000 in my State. Now 71 million Americans are getting free preventive care, such as checkups and birth control and immunizations. They do not like that, I guess. They are willing to shut the government down over it. Now 17 million kids with preexisting conditions, such as asthma, can no longer be denied coverage. Insurance companies cannot cancel your health insurance because you get sick. There are no more lifetime limits on coverage. Anyone who has had a catastrophic disease knows it is pretty easy to hit that cap. No more caps in a year. No more lifetime caps. This is what they are so obsessed about. So they are willing to shut down the government to take away these benefits.

They said: Oh, health care costs are going to go up because of the Affordable Care Act. Well, guess what, health care costs are growing at the slowest rate in over 50 years. Insurance companies now have to justify their premium hikes. Before, they just hiked your rates and they could do it with impunity. Now, insurers have to spend at least 80 percent of your premiums on your medical care, not on overhead. They cannot pocket the money; they have to spend it on health care. Also, 8.5 million Americans have received rebate checks from their insurance company because they were overcharged. Is that what the Republicans are so upset about? They are willing to shut down the government to take away these benefits from the people.

Insurance companies cannot deny coverage or charge more for preexisting conditions. They cannot charge women more than men. There is no more discrimination. Again, in a single year, they cannot impose dollar limits on you.

The Republicans are upset about the deficit. The deficit has been cut in half.

I ask unanimous consent for 3 additional minutes.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mrs. BOXER. The House has voted 41 times to defund the Affordable Care Act. They took it all the way to the Supreme Court, the Republican attorneys general. They lost. They made it a centerpiece of the 2012 election. They lost the Presidential election. Now they are willing to shut down the government unless they get their way.

So I would conclude by asking some rhetorical questions.

Why are the Republicans obsessed with kicking young people off their parents' insurance?

Why are the Republicans so obsessed with stopping preventive care, such as checkups and birth control and immunizations?

Why are Republicans so obsessed with repealing benefits that guarantee insurance coverage for children and adults with preexisting conditions?

Why are they so obsessed with stopping 13 million people from getting insurance who never had the chance before?

Why are they so obsessed with stopping 24 million people from getting insurance under the new State health exchanges?

Why are they so obsessed with repealing a law that prevents insurance companies from canceling an insurance policy when someone gets sick? Why are they obsessed that we are stopping that practice?
http://thomas.loc.gov
Why are they so obsessed when we say you can no longer have an annual dollar limit on benefits?

Why are they so obsessed with repealing a law that says to an insurance company: You cannot have a lifetime limit on benefits.

Why are they so obsessed with repealing a law that finally stops discrimination against women? You know, being a woman was considered a preexisting condition. Honestly. You would have to pay twice as much as a man for your health care. If you were a victim of some kind of spousal abuse, that was considered a preexisting condition and your payments went up or maybe you never even got insurance.

I have to that say finally, why are they so obsessed with doing away with the Affordable Care Act when CBO--the Congressional Budget Office--says it will save $109 billion over 10 years and over $1 trillion the following decade?

I cannot answer these questions. All I can think is that it is politics. It is politics. I have been here a long time. I am proud of it. I thank my people in California for allowing me to have this honor. There were many laws I did not like, believe me. I have served with five Presidents. I did not agree with quite a few of them--two or three--but when I lost a battle, I did not try to shut down the government. When I lost a battle, I did not say: We cannot pay our debts. Oh, maybe I voted once or twice as a symbolic vote, but I knew the votes were there.

So I would say to my friends, get over your obsession and proceed with your responsibilities to keep this government open. Forget about repealing a health care law that is about to kick in that is good for the people and pay your debts.

I yield the floor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source