Date: 2008-02-07
Speaker: WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (democrat)
Chamber: H

Mr. Speaker and Members. colleagues. I am pleased to open this hour for the 30Something Working Group. look forward to my fellow colleagues joining me as we progress through the hour. We come to the floor tonight to talk about a variety of important issues. We are proud and pleased that we sent an economic stimulus package that was developed in a bipartisan fashion. in a bipartisan spirit. this evening to the President of the United States. It was a process that was long negotiated and hard fought. but we were able to make sure that we focused on the priorities of the American people during a difficult time economically. The focus of this economic stimulus package was threefold. and they all begin with "t." First. an economic stimulus package that we passed had to be "temporary." We have to make sure that we can get a temporary infusion of cash into the hands of the middle class and people who will spend that money. and make sure that we can stimulate the economy. It has to be "targeted." It has to make sure that we were getting it into the hands of people who were actually going to spend that money. not people that were going to invest it. not people that necessarily were going to just pay. off bills or sit on the money. but people who were going to use it to spend on items that they needed and get that infusion of cash into the economy so that we can have a shortterm stimulus. And. finally. the third "t" in the threelegged stool is that it had to be "timely." We had to do it soon and quickly because in order to either stave off a recession. or address the one that were in. depending on which side of the debate youre on. on whether were in a recession or headed towards one. we needed to make sure that we did this in a timely fashion and made sure that we can get that cash into peoples hands over the next couple of months. And now we look forward to that happening. Let me walk Members and others through the process that we went through. This was truly a bipartisan effort. It continued the bipartisan spirit that Speaker PELOSI and our majority leadership have been making an effort at extending our hand across the aisle since taking over the majoritya little over 1 year ago. In December of last year. the House. under the leadership of Speaker PELOSI. held a House Democratic Economic Forum to talk about the dire straits that the economy was facing to really hear about what issues Americans were struggling with and to begin to figure out what we could do.on a shortterm as well as a longterm basis. E 2030 After the beginning of December. we had ongoing discussions between the House leaders and the administration through Treasury Secretary Paulson. There were intense and heavy discussions because everyone knew that something needed to be done. The devil is always obviously in the details. But we came together. the administration as well as the Republican and Democratic leadership of the House of Representatives. we came together. and came up with a bipartisan solution. There was a Democratic leadership letter to President Bush that was sent on January 11 urging the President to work with us and make sure that we could pass an economic stimulus package that was timely and targeted and that we made sure that it got money into the hands of people who would spend it. We saw that PELOSi had a meeting with the Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. and he testified in the House of Representatives on January 14 and thereafter. and the message that he sent was that an economic stimulus package was essential and would be helpful in order to deal with the issues that the economy is struggling with. After that. we had a meeting between Speaker PELOSI and Leader BOEHNER. and they were able to reach an agreementand move in the direction until we finally reached today where we are able to pass the economic stimulus package. send it to the President. and over the next couple of months. I believe the timing is around May of this year. we will see that those funds get intothe hands of people who need it the most. One of the most exciting things about this package is that it is not going to go to the wealthiest few. It is not going to go to people who are just going to put it into the stock market or sit on it or just pay off bills or use it topad fat bank accounts. We were able to successfully negotiate that the people who received. this economic stimulus. these economic stimulus funds. we were able to stretch it all the way down to people who earn only $3.000. I mean. that is a category of person who truly fits the definition of needing the economic assistance. People who will be able to use those funds to make sure that they can address their everyday needs and spend those dollars so that we can put it an injection of cash into the economy and begin to revitalize it. We made sure that we also provided some assistance for people who are struggling with housing issues and with mortgage issues by making sure that the FHA has a wider ceiling of mortgages in which they can provide loans to people. We have raised the cap to up over $700.000. recognizing that the range of the cost of housing is wide across the country. Its good to see Mr. ALTMIRE. and Im glad you have joined us tonight. I know that the average price of a house in my district. in my community right now is over $300.000. which. obviously. without an economic stimulus package raising that cap would make it difficult for someone to qualify under the FHAs criteria. But we were able to make sure that we raised that cap for 1 year so that we could address in a shortterm way the third T. which was "temporary." in a shortterm way address the economic problems that people are struggling with right now. And we have continued the bipartisan tradition through the economic stimulus package because last year. when We began and took over the majority. we adopted the 6 in. 06 agenda. In the first 100 hours of our taking over the majority of the House of Representatives. the Democratic Congress acted on issues important to Americans. and the Republicans on the other side of the aisle joined with us in a bipartisan fashion. Mr. MURPHY has joined us as well. Lets walk through some of the bipartisan cooperation that weve had over the last years because there is a lot of words thrown around about how this is an institution that is being run by Democrats and that there is not bipartisan cooperation. Let us just show where the proof is in the pudding here. We implemented the 9/11 Commissions recommendations which. in previous years. this was a report that was sitting on the shelf gathering dust with the Republicans refusing to put that on the floor and adopt up that legislation. We put it on the floor. It passed 299128 with 68 Republican votes. We had an average of over 60 votes for every one of these bills. Raising the minimum wage. H.R. 2. It passed 315116 with 82 Republican votes. The funding for enhanced stem cell research. which unfortunately President Bush saw fit to veto. That was H.R. 3. itpassed 253174 with 37 Republican votes. We passed legislation to make prescription drugs more affordable. so that we could allow the Federal Government to negotiate for lower drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry which. by the way. is currently prohibited in Federal law. We passed that legislation with 255170 with 24 Republican votes. And the list goes on. Cutting student loans in half. That was H.R. 5. Passed 35671 with 124 Republican votes. And. lastly. we passed the energy package. which was the effort that we are making to recognize that global warming. yes. global warming. truly is a problem and we are committed to ending our addiction to foreign oil. Adopted the CAFE standards. the first time that we adopted some improved CAFE standard in 30 years. H.R. 6 passed 264163 with 36 Republican votes. In that legislation. the CAFE standards was legislation that was passed a few months later. And in this bill we said that we were not going to allow $14 billion in subsidies to be returned to the oil industry so we could make sure that we start to address the hig!! cost of fuel. So we are very proud of our record. our bipartisan spirit of cooperation. which culminated this evening and will continue. we hope. through the rest of this election year by passing that economic stimulus package. Im happy to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.