Tonight, 11 million of America’s children are one step closer to receiving quality, affordable health care through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is critical to supporting hard-working families in these difficult economic times. By ensuring health care for these children, families will get regular doctor visits and preventive care so that minor illnesses do not become more serious, saving parents out-of-pocket medical expenses and avoiding costly emergency room care.
Today, the Congressional Oversight Panel released a report - mandated by Congress - making recommendations on how to reform our financial regulatory system. In the report, the panel summarized:
Modern financial regulation can provide consumers and investors with adequate information for making sound financial decisions and can protect them from being misled or defrauded, especially in complex financial transactions. Better regulation can reduce conflicts of interest and help manage moral hazard, particularly by limiting incentives for excessive risk taking stemming from often implicit government guaranties. By limiting risk taking in key parts of the financial sector, regulation can reduce systemic threats to the broader financial system and the economy as a whole. Ultimately, financial regulation embodies good risk management, transparency, and fairness.
Watch video of Chair Elizabeth Warren introducing this report below:
The report examines how deregulation of financial markets over the last twenty-five years have returned the boom-and-bust cycles that had plagued the United States’ economy until reforms of the Great Depression ushered in a half-century of financial stability. The report specifically points to three areas of regulation that could have prevented the current economic crisis, specifically basic consumer protection rules, supervision of credit rating agencies, and regulation of companies that are “too big to fail.”
Speaker Pelosi on the report:
The Congressional Oversight Panel’s report further exposes the current regulatory system’s failure to oversee financial markets in a way that protects the interests of the American people. Congress will closely examine the report’s valuable recommendations.
Regulatory reform is a top priority because we have an obligation to ensure effective financial market oversight and to protect the American people against unbridled Wall Street greed. I will work with President Obama, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, and our colleagues to better protect Americans from predatory lending and to restore confidence and the long-term stability to the financial markets.
Today’s vote is a victory for the American people. As the President urged us to do in his Inaugural Address just eight days ago, the House is taking action, ‘bold and swift,’ by passing a bill to create and save 3 to 4 million jobs.
This is a bill about the future and about how we create jobs for today’s workers and for the next generation. It provides tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans, invests in science and innovation, in energy, in health care, in education — all with strict accountability and fiscal responsibility.
We have worked for years to protect taxpayer dollars and improve services the federal government provides by protecting those most familiar with how the dollars are spent and the results achieved. Today, the worst economic downturn in decades requires recovery legislation of such a scope that these protections have become more critical than ever.
It is inconceivable that the people’s business had been conducted for so long without ‘whistleblower’ protections to encourage every public employee to do the right thing. In many cases, these whistleblowers save extraordinary sums of money, protect the integrity of research done in federal labs, and restore public confidence in the work of our nation.
At last we have a President who believes we must both shine a bright light on our government and let the voices of those who speak the truth be heard loud and clear.
An amendment by Rep. Teague requiring the Recovery.gov website established by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contain links and information to assist Americans in accessing jobs created under the bill was also adopted. The amendment further directs Recovery.gov to include links to local employment agencies, state, local, and other public agencies receiving recovery funds, and private firms contracted to perform work funded by the legislation.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer on the Republican substitute:
Rep. Blumenauer: “I’m glad, however, that they’ve offered this alternative because it puts in clear relief what their priorities are - take money away from 95% of the American public and invest in the few who need it the least. Take money away from 4 million students who would have this tax relief. And my favorite, is actually continue to game the alternative minimum tax to purposely push more people into it, with tax gimmicks -rather than work with us in fundamental tax reform that doesn’t subject more people, and give us this biannual charade.”
Rep. Sander Levin on the Republican substitute:
Rep. Levin: “You’re going have to go back to Michigan and say to at least 25,000 families, health care provided under the Democratic approach, and I hope a bipartisan approach, will be eliminated.”
Rep. Richard Neal on the Republican substitute:
Rep. Neal: “We were looking at a $5.7 trillion surplus that debt had gone down and deficits had been eliminated. Now their argument is, and they cling to it, tax cuts pay for themselves. And now they look at a debt of $10 trillion.”
Rep. Bill Pascrell on the Republican substitute:
Rep. Pascrell: “This substitute continues the practice of providing tax cuts for the wealthiest American and it ain’t going to happen anymore.”
The Republican substitute amendment to H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, would eliminate meaningful tax relief to middle-class families and deny critical benefits those who have lost their jobs and health insurance due to the economic crisis. Further, the GOP substitute fails to create jobs by eliminating critical investments in America’s infrastructure, Health IT, and renewable energy technology. Finally, the GOP bill claims to offer “relief” from the alternative minimum tax (AMT), when in fact their “relief” would still force 26 million Americans to pay higher taxes this year under the AMT.
“The Republican substitute cuts nearly all forms of assistance to middle-class families struggling during the downturn,” said Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. “It gives $48 billion in tax cuts to those who are prospering even in this economic downturn, lobbyists on K Street, lawyers, and high-paid professionals, while denying critical assistance to the people who work for them.”
According to a Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis, roughly 23 million lower-income taxpayers would receive nothing at all under the GOP substitute, compared to legislation written by House Democrats which would cut taxes for 95% of all working families under the “Making Work Pay” credit.
ELIMINATES ASSISTANCE TO STRUGGLING AMERICANS
Eliminates the “Making Work Pay” tax credit that will provide 95% of working families with a tax cut. Under the Republican substitute, only about the top fifth (21%) of households would get the full tax cut.
Eliminates tax relief for 16 million children by striking the child tax credit improvements.
Eliminates the “American Opportunity” tax credit that will provide tax relief for more than 4 million students.
Eliminates COBRA Provisions that would help maintain health insurance for people who have lost their jobs in this recession.
ELIMINATES INVESTMENTS IN NEW JOBS & TECHNOLOGY
The Republican substitute would completely eliminate $550 billion in targeted priority investments included in H.R. 1 for (1) clean, efficient, American energy, (2) transforming our economy with science and technology, (3) modernizing roads, bridges, transit and waterways, (4) education for the 21st century, (5) lowering healthcare costs, (6) helping workers hurt by the economy and (7) saving public sector jobs and protect vital services.
Eliminates investments in clean, efficient, American energy
Eliminates investments in Health IT
Eliminates projects to modernize schools, roads, bridges, transit and waterways
FORCES SIX TIMES AS MANY TAXPAYERS ONTO THE AMT
The so-called “AMT relief” in the Republican substitute is dishonest. Under the “AMT relief” provided under the Republican substitute, the number of taxpayers affected by the AMT would grow to 26 million taxpayers in 2009 and 28 million taxpayers in 2010 — six times as many taxpayers as in 2008. Last year, Congress provided AMT relief to ensure that the AMT did not grow beyond the 4.2 million taxpayers that were already affected by the AMT. A six-fold increase in the number of taxpayers that are subject to the AMT is hardly tax relief – ask the 26 million taxpayers who would pay the AMT in 2009.
As families are struggling in this recession, tens of millions of students are losing the opportunity to go to college. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes key provisions to keep the doors of college open. The bill:
Improves current higher education tax credits, by creating a new “American Opportunity” tax credit with a maximum of $2,500 rather than the current maximum of $1,800 — thereby making college more affordable for millions of low- and moderate-income students.
Also provides this new “American Opportunity” tax credit to nearly 4 million low-income students who had not had any access to higher education tax credits in the past – by making it partially refundable. As a result, the nearly one-fifth of high school seniors who receive no tax credit under the current system will receive a tax cut to make college affordable for the first time.
Makes college more affordable for 7 million students by increasing the maximum Pell Grant by $500, for a maximum of $5,350 in 2009 and $5,550 in 2010, and also funding the shortfall in the program.
Adds $490 million to the vital College Work-Study program that supports undergraduate and graduate students who work, allowing an additional 200,000 students to participate.
Also makes college more affordable by increasing the limit on unsubsidized Stafford loans by $2,000.
As the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities stated, “together these proposals mean that low-income students and families on the brink of stopping or dropping out of their higher education plans can stay in, and that unemployed workers can choose retraining for a new job.”
Watch Rep. Tim Ryan of the Speaker’s “30 Something Working Group” on the higher education tax credits:
Learn more from the Committee on Education and Labor:
Today, the House will continue consideration and vote on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, H.R. 1, working from priorities shared with President-elect Barack Obama. This recovery package is the first crucial step in a concerted effort to create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, jumpstart our economy, and transform it for the 21st century. This means real change: it will strengthen the middle class, not just Wall Street CEOs and special interests in Washington.
This afternoon, the House will begin general debate on H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The House will consider amendments and final passage on Wednesday. This legislation will create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, rebuilding America, making us more globally competitive and energy independent, and transforming our economy for long-term growth; give 95 percent of American workers an immediate tax cut; and invest quickly in the economy.
Read about each of the key areas of the bill in our current legislation section:
The plan will create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, jumpstart our economy, and transform it for the 21st century.
Unprecedented accountability and transparency measures are built in to help ensure tax dollars are spent wisely. $550 billion is strategically targeted to priority investments; $275 billion in targeted tax cuts will also help spur economic recovery.
First, there’s the bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created. Why is it bogus? Because it involves taking the cost of a plan that will extend over several years, creating millions of jobs each year, and dividing it by the jobs created in just one of those years.
It’s as if an opponent of the school lunch program were to take an estimate of the cost of that program over the next five years, then divide it by the number of lunches provided in just one of those years, and assert that the program was hugely wasteful, because it cost $13 per lunch. (The actual cost of a free school lunch, by the way, is $2.57.)
The true cost per job of the Obama plan will probably be closer to $100,000 than $275,000 — and the net cost will be as little as $60,000 once you take into account the fact that a stronger economy means higher tax receipts.
According to the CBO, about two-thirds of the plan’s recovery investments will come in the first 18 months after it is enacted. The House bill will create jobs, help end the recession sooner, provide tax relief to millions of Americans and make critical long-term investments to lay the foundation for a stronger economy.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s ability to create and save 3 to 4 million jobs is the change the American people were promised and the pledge the House will make good on this week. The American people look forward to rapid action in Congress and to President Obama signing the bill into law so we can begin to move our economy in a New Direction.