Providing that the House of Representatives Will Focus on Removing Barriers to Competitiveness of the United States Economy
PROVIDING THAT THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WILL FOCUS ON REMOVING BARRIERS TO COMPETITIVENESS OF THE UNITED STATES ECONOMY -- (House of Representatives - July 12, 2005)
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, there is really nothing terribly, terribly wrong with this resolution. Talking about a need to invest in greater innovation, research and education, certainly makes sense. The vexing thing for me is this Republican Congress and White House has systematically unfunded almost all of those items. We heard the numbers from my colleagues, and I will not go back over them, except to remind folks of the recent debate we had over the appropriations bills.
Repeatedly, throughout the debate, as Democrats talked about spending more money on a variety of different items, the Republican appropriators said, You know, this is the money we have, this is the best we can do with what we have.
Well, let us look at the decisions that left us in the position where "this is what we have." One of the consequences of those decisions is we do not have enough money to fund the research, education and innovation that is necessary. All of the items that are ticked off, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, No Child Left Behind, we all know what they are. We know how important in the global economy innovation, research, education and skills training is. Yet the programs that fund those vital needs, vital needs particularly for blue-collar, middle-class and lower-class workers, are consistently cut, reduced, not funded like they should be because of the budget decisions of this Congress.
Part of it certainly is the tax cut. That has been the decision of this Congress; supply-side tax cuts for people making a lot of money at the expense of all of these programs we are talking about today. It is incredibly vexing to hear the Republican majority stand up and talk about how much they care about these programs.
At a minimum, I wish they would make a choice, they would say: Supply-side tax cuts for people making a lot of money, that is what we support; that is what we are going to do. That being done, we cannot afford to do these other things, and that is okay. But to stand up today and say that you care about them when you have created a budget environment where they cannot be funded is disingenuous, to say the least. If these are priorities, then let us change the budget. And it is not just tax cuts. We can look at the spending decisions of the last 6 years that have seen massive increases in overall Federal spending while, at the same time, underfunding these critical items.
The budget priorities of the Republican Congress are responsible, and an empty "Sense of Congress" resolution is not going to fix that.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
http://thomas.loc.gov