On the recordJuly 18, 2012
This afternoon the House is going to take up the Sequestration Transparency Act. It's harmless enough, but it doesn't do anything. What is it? A year ago, Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell took this country to the brink of debt default. They demanded that we cut spending by $1.2 trillion to offset the increase in the debt limit. Now, their plan was to have the supercommittee get the job done any way they wanted to balance the cuts and revenues. But if that failed, they had a backup. The backup was automatic cuts that would be half Pentagon and half discretionary. Now the day arrives. January 1, 2013, those cuts go into effect, but they don't want the cuts to go into effect. So this legislation tells the Congressional Budget Office to look at the law we passed and tell us what did we do, why did we do it, what will happen if what we order to be done is allowed to be done. This is a ``Comedy Central'' joke. We have to have a balanced approach to a serious problem, but that means making decisions today about a balanced approach that includes revenues, includes the Pentagon, and includes domestic discretionary. ____________________
