Ensuring Tax Exempt Organizations the Right to Appeal Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time.
I plan on voting for this bill, but I am not here to pound and
celebrate that.

It does things that are good. It lifts the debt ceiling and puts us
in a position where we don't have to fear defaulting on America's
debts. It avoids ruinous cuts in Medicare part B, and disability
insurance benefit cuts won't go down.

But the fact is no one here, no one in this room, can say that this
piece of legislation that we are looking at now is going to advance
America, bring us progress that we actually really need.

Do you know that, since 2012, we have seen 640 fewer National
Institutes of Health grants? We haven't been making the investments we
need in embassy security, housing, health care, education. We are not
advancing America.

This is not a progress budget. This is a survival budget. And we need
to survive; so, I'm going to vote for this piece of legislation.
But we must come to the moment in time when we are looking to advance
our country, to move forward and offer real leadership to the world,
rather than just obsessing over how much we can cut and how much we can
take.

The fact is that the Progressive Caucus offered a budget. It meets
our minimal conditions, but it doesn't advance our real progress that
we need.

We have principles that we have been talking about that are about
pushing this country forward: child nutrition, affordable care, college
education, housing, transit. This is what is going to make our country
strong.

This budget keeps us above water, keeps us from defaulting on our
debts, and that is a good thing. But can't we do more?

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