30-Something Working Group

30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP -- (House of Representatives - October 20, 2005)

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Ms. NORTON. Well, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek) very much for taking out this hour and taking the leadership on this vital issue.

Mr. Speaker, I was on my way to a markup. I got there and I thought I saw that there were a few minutes yet, and I said, I have to go down. Because I want my colleague to know that I heard from some of my friends on the other side get up and say words to the effect that our side did not want to see any budget resolution that had any cuts; and that, see, there go the Democrats again, they think you can just spend money. And comments like, even though they see the problem, they do not want any cuts to be made because they say that nobody will be for the budget resolution changes that are coming down now.

So I said to myself, my goodness, what is coming down now? The American people need to know that it is a perversion of what is required, a perversion of what they even say it is, which is an attempt to do the cuts so that there will be money for the Katrina victims. I did not think I could let them get away with that when three or four of them got up with the same message.

I think the first thing to understand, because we have the credibility to say it, is that the Democrats stand for a balanced budget, including making some cuts at this time given this emergency. We have the credibility to say it because we have proposed a budget that would put us in balance by the year 2012. We have done it. It is balanced. It is there for all to see on our Web site.

This is the moment. It is a magic moment, and the American people should look for this moment. This is the moment when the Congress should reinstate PAYGO. That is the pay-as-you-go notion that in the 1990s brought us to surplus, the surplus that the Republican White House inherited of almost $250 billion, a surplus as far as the eye could see, and in the snap of a finger it was gone.

We have pressed this Congress ever since the last administration left office to keep PAYGO. They have, in fact, said the only thing we are going to use PAYGO for are for spending other than tax cuts. So, we have had a perversion of PAYGO. We can do as many tax cuts, and they have been overwhelmingly for the most advantaged and wealthy people in our society, and you do not have to pay for those. But if in fact you are trying to help the poorest people in this society, such as those who were exposed for the world to see from the Katrina hurricane, then you better pay for those.

I do not think you could find any substantial number of the American people who would say, I am right there with you, and so we say, let us go with PAYGO right now. You will find that there will be Americans, those who are most concerned with the deficit, those who are most concerned with helping the poor saying, yes, now is the moment and we are for it.

Instead, what we see is amazing and brazen in how the resolution that appears to be coming down would operate. Since tax cuts cannot be touched, we have been told that, still, over and over again, the spending cuts are, in effect, going to take from services of the kind that the Katrina victims need. Do understand that. If you are a Katrina victim, even if you are middle class now, you need Medicaid when you did not need it before, you will need food stamps when you did not need them before.

I saw a woman on television who said, and this is a woman in her fifties, who said the very notion of food stamps and my family asking for them is so laughable that I did not even know how to do it. She had to have her daughter, who had also never been on food stamps, help her to find out how you apply for food stamps. So we are talking about of course the poor, the poor to our shame that we all saw but who somehow we had not seen before, but now we are also talking about hundreds of thousands of the new poor, or the temporarily poor, and those are the victims of Katrina who simply will not be able to get from one day to the next unless they have access to the services that have only been available to the poor, like Medicaid and like food stamps.

If that is not enough under the topic of perversion, here is another one. This is supposed to be about cutting the deficit. We still leave the deficit at more than $100 billion. We do not make any real inroads into the deficit, so what are we doing? Do we really think the American people are fooled? I do not think so. I think as technical as this stuff can get, they are beginning to understand it. We see it in the polls.

I must say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), I was here with his mother before him; and in my 15 years in Congress, I have never seen such a gap in the generic poll between Democrats and Republicans. That tells me our message of who believes in balance and who believes in making cuts but doing them in the right way is getting across.

I say to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Meek), the Republicans started with $35 billion in entitlement spending, no tax-cut spending. That was cruel, but that is where they were, and that is what we had to take with all of our protestations. They said, no, that is not enough. After Hurricane Katrina, they said we need more. We need $50 billion. They say to the American people with a straight face, we need to do this for the Hurricane Katrina victims. These are the very victims who are now having their Medicaid and food stamps cut.

As if there are no offsets on tax cuts, we are looking to the spending cuts paying for tax cuts and new tax cuts, as much as $70 billion in tax cuts. We have been in the Congress long enough with Republicans in charge to know they believe in the reverse Robin Hood notion, take from the poor and give to the rich, but after Hurricane Katrina, how shameful, on the backs of poor give more in tax cuts.

The gentleman from New York (Mr. Serrano) was clear when he says he knows where the rich would be. He said he cannot think of the rich in New York who would say this is the way to do it after Hurricane Katrina. We know and we want everybody to know we know where the money is, and it is in mandatory spending. We know there have to be cuts in the entitlement spending, and there have to be cuts where they hurt most, in Medicaid and Medicare. We hate that. But if there is a balanced budget resolution, we are prepared to eat that pain along with the rest of the country. What we are not prepared to do, what we are not prepared to do, after $35 billion in cuts that have already been on the backs of the poor, to break their backs by, in fact, more cuts to them.

The House has already cut low-income energy assistance, 8 percent. There was an 8 percent cut below last year's level. Middle-class people in our country are pulling their hair out trying to figure out how to heat their homes this winter, and we are going to cut even further the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program for the poor. We could shout it from the hilltops because I do not think there are any Americans anywhere that would sanction that.

Every single winter we have left it at level funding; and to cut it this year when we know what has happened to energy, we know what has happened to oil and to gas, and everybody has informed everybody what they have to get ready for. They are telling middle-class people now is the time to shore up your houses, put in storm windows, and do the extras that will save you in your heating bills. Tell that to the poor people. They do not own the premises. They are the renters of this country. They are having a hard time finding enough money to pay the rent. They cannot fix the premises; and if they did, because they are so poor, they could not buy the storm windows. This is so cruel that you will not find Americans in any number who will sanction this if we tell it.

Mr. Speaker, we are going to tell it. We are going to tell it in the rich and the poor neighbors. We do not have the same access to the media the other side has, but just wait until we finish telling America about how you are taking money for Hurricane Katrina victims supposedly, from other poor people to supposedly pay for them when the money will in fact go to pay for tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

Let me give one more example that I think will get to the heart of the problem, and that is the possibility of a 2 percent across-the-board cut that will cut special education funding below the 2005 level, further reducing special education.

There is not a Member here who does not hear his school board, his local officials screaming about special education drinking up the lion's share of the education dollar. As it is now, we are down to covering only about 17.5 percent of special education. That is 17.5 percent out of the storied 40 percent we pledged the States we would cover when we passed the IDEA bill.

Mr. Speaker, who has the nerve to say to States, take from the traditional children if you have to, because the IDEA bill says you have to give to your special education children. So this time I say to my friend, we are not taking from the poor to the rich, we are taking from our traditional children and giving to our most needy children, and that is a trade-off nobody in America wants us to make.

Mr. Speaker, I say to my friend before I return to my markup, the gentleman has done us a service. I do not know how many Americans are watching, but I do say whatever happens here, we do not have the majority. The gentleman from Florida took this hour so we could make it clear that the other side of the aisle cannot come on the floor and say whatever they want to say, even if what they say are patent untruths, without understanding that lie for lie, you will find us talking to the American people to try to set the record straight.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership.

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