Ranking Member Johnson Voices Opposition to the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act
(Washington, DC) – Today, Ranking Member Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-TX) of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee voiced her strong opposition to H.R. 2560, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011.
H.R. 2560 cuts total spending by $111 billion in FY12 alone; requires that Federal spending as a percentage of GDP be cut significantly; enforces FY 2012 spending caps with sequestration; and makes raising the debt ceiling contingent on Congress passing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution. It would cut non-security discretionary spending for FY 2012 by $76 billion, which would represent a 25% cut in budget authority for next year with similar cuts in the years that follow.
Ranking Member Johnson said, “I have limited time, so I am not going to try today to cover all of the significant problems inherent in H.R. 2560; I know that there are other Members who plan to address many of the issues I care about, such as the central truth that this bill would end the Medicare guarantee. That in itself is reason enough to oppose H.R. 2560, but I also want to highlight the devastating impact this bill would have on our nation’s competitiveness, our ability to innovate, and our ability to create the jobs of the future.”
She continued by giving several examples of how the bill would harm the Nation. For example, she said, “[L]et’s consider the impact of such a cut on the programs that help to predict severe weather, something that has been a particular concern in many parts of the nation this year. With these cuts, Mr. Speaker, we would essentially be guaranteeing a diminished national capability for weather forecast and prediction, especially of severe weather events. . . What will happen? Well, for one thing, the accuracy of our long term weather forecasts will be severely diminished. Farmers, emergency management officials, military planners, fisherman, coastal residents and marine transportation capabilities, the tourism industry, and all Americans and other American businesses will be operating with weather predictions that are severely diminished in accuracy. When it comes to extreme weather events such as those that we’ve been experiencing across the nation, diminished weather forecasting directly increases the risk of loss of lives and property, not to mention the widespread economic losses that come from our inability to prepare for such extreme events.”
She continued, “[W]hile it’s difficult to quantify the devastating impacts of a 25% cut to the NSF budget, we can roughly estimate that such a cut would lead to the reduction of over 17,000 research grants…We cannot predict where the next scientific breakthroughs will come from, or which research grant will lead to the next Google or GPS…With these kinds of budget cuts, we will be supporting less cutting-edge research and building fewer critically important scientific research user facilities, but perhaps the biggest problem is the loss of human capital. China and Europe are increasing funding for research and building world class research facilities while we are heading in the opposite direction. Those countries are successfully recruiting our best and brightest as we successfully recruited theirs for many decades.”
She closed her statement, “At the end of the day, Mr. Speaker, this bill is not going to become law. It is simply a diversion from the serious business on which this body should be focusing its attention. However, it is not a harmless diversion. The extreme and ill-considered cuts that would flow from its enactment send a terrible message to our citizens about this House’s priorities. When your car is low on gas, you don’t siphon more out of the tank, yet that is what this bill would do to the nation’s R&D and innovation capabilities. I want the record to be clear that I do not support the cuts in this bill, nor do I support the process under which this bill has come to the House floor. We can—and should—do better. This bill is short-sighted; its negative impacts would cost more in the long-term than any immediate budget reductions would save in the short-term. I urge my colleagues in Congress to vote NO on this bill.”
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