mr. becerra. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. becerra: i thank the gentleman for yielding. in december this congress gave 20 conferees three tasks a cheeve by february 29. to extend the payroll tax cut for 160 million middle class americans. to ensure americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own received their unemployment insurance benefits. and to guarantee our seniors on medicare have access to the doctors of their choice and the care they need. we achieved this goal. but let's be clear. this agreement is by no means free of controversy. the gentleman from maryland, mr. hoyer, eloquently illustrated that. our republican colleagues succeeded in extrabblingting a pound of flesh from -- extracting a pound of flesh from middle class working americans who also serve ably in the federal government. what was the alternate that we faced -- alternative that we faced? a house republican bill passed in december that quadrupled the cuts to workers in their salaries and benefits, that increased the cost of medicare for millio

mr. becerra. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. becerra: i thank the gentleman for yielding. in december this congress gave 20 conferees three tasks a cheeve by february 29. to extend the payroll tax cut for 160 million middle class americans. to ensure americans who lost their jobs through no ult of their own received their unemployment insurance benefits. and to guarantee our seniors on medicare have access to the doctors of their choice and the care they need. we achieved this goal. but let's be clear. this aeement is by no means free of controversy. the gentleman from maryland, mr. hoyer, eloquentl illustrated that. our republican colleagues succeeded in extrabblingting a pound of flesh from -- extracting a pound of flesh from middle class working americans who also serve ably in the federal government. what was the alternate that we faced -- alternative that we faced? a house republican bill passed in december that quadrupled the cuts to workers in their salaries and benefits, that ineased the cost of medicare for millions of s

mr. becerra. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for two minutes. mr. becerra: i thank the gentleman for yielding. in december this congress gave 20 conferees three tasks a cheeve by february 29. to extend the payroll tax cut for 160 million middle class americans. to ensure americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own received their unemployment insurance benefits. and to guarantee our seniors on medicare have access to the doctors of their choice and the care they need. we achieved this goal. but let's be clear. this agreement is by no means free of controversy. the gentleman from maryland, mr. hoyer, eloquently illustrated that. our republican colleagues succeeded in extrabblingting a pound of flesh from -- extracting a pound of flesh from middle class working americans who also serve ably in the federal government. what was the alternate that we faced -- alternative that we faced? a house republican bill passed in december that quadrupled the cuts to workers in their salaries and benefits, that increased the cost of medicare for millio

mr. becerra sat on that my friend who sits in the chamber. the other was domenici and rivlin and we had others, including the gang of six in the united states senate, and all of them had a premise that we needed to deal with the fiscal problem that confronts us and the other premise was all of us need to contribute to that solution. all of us. now, what do we see that's being proposed in this congress , partially in this bill but only partially in this bill? we have either on the floor proposed on passed over the last two years -- listen to this ladies and gentlemen -- we are about to cut or propose to cut $134 billion out of our federal employees over the next 10 years. nobody else in this bill, not a millionaire, not a billionaire, not a carried interest beneficiary, not an oil company, nobody in this bill other than federal employees is asked to pay. i understand we have hospital cuts. by the way, we have $5 billion to that because we just increased by one year the cut that they know they got. the same for some other things. no individual