Waving Points of Order Against Conference Report on S. 1932, Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
WAIVING POINTS OF ORDER AGAINST CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. 1932, DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - December 18, 2005)
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Ms. PELOSI. I thank the gentlewoman from New York for yielding me this time and for her eloquent presentation of this rule against this terrible, terrible, as the Congresswoman from Florida said, shameful bill.
I want to also pay tribute to Mr. Spratt of South Carolina, our ranking member on the Budget Committee, as I rise in opposition to this rule and in opposition to this bill. Mr. Spratt, anybody in our country who cares about fairness, about opportunity, about responsibility, about community is enormously in your debt for the values budget that you put forth and the great and excellent work that you do on behalf of the American people. Thank you, Mr. Spratt.
Mr. Spratt called me earlier this evening and told me, well, actually it was earlier this morning, and he told me he had just received the budget bill, 700 pages. Now, we all know one thing for sure. No one in this Congress has read that bill. So later, in just a short while, we will be voting on a bill that no one has read. But we do know certain things about it that make it very objectionable, not just to us but to the religious community in America.
Mr. Speaker, ``Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat, please to put a penny in the old man's hat. If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do. If you haven't got a ha'penny, God bless you.''
With this budget bill, the special interest goose is getting very, very fat. Do we say God bless you with this budget when Congress leaves here without passing a budget which comes close to meeting the needs of America's families who are struggling to pay their home heating bills and pay the price at the pump? This same Congress gave obscene subsidies to oil companies that are making historic profits this year; yet we give a small token to America's families to help pay the bills to those oil companies.
Do we say God bless you with this budget when we leave here without extending the time that our seniors need to understand the befuddling prescription drug bill that has been handed to them with a time limit? Democrats have a better idea of extending the time for seniors and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. But, no, the pharmaceutical and health industry goose is getting fat off this Congress at the expense of America's seniors.
And, really, what is so sad about it is that when it comes to meeting the needs of our young people and opportunities for them, we do not say God bless you, we say to them we are adding $5,800 more to those who use student loans. How could that be right while at the same time we give tax cuts to those making over $1 million a year; and at the same, at the same time we are growing the deficit and heaping mountains of debt onto those same young people?
Mr. Obey calls this Scroogenomics. Scroogenomics. But, really, associating Scrooge with this Republican budget gives Scrooge a bad name. He saw the evil of his ways, Scrooge did. These Republicans are so blinded by the greed of their special interest friends that they are stuck in their cruel ways.
That is why leaders of every religious denomination have prayed in this rotunda, have prayed in churches across America, and as recently as a couple of days ago were arrested, over 100 of them and their representatives on the steps of the Cannon Building, to protest this budget.
Religious denominations prayed and lobbied Congress that Congress would do the right thing. They said that they were drawing a moral line in the sand against this budget. Democrats joined them in drawing that line in the sand between a Republican government of the privileged few instead of the government of the many, which is the American way.
Mr. Speaker, I associate myself with the remarks of the gentlewoman from Florida when she says, shame on you. It is shameful that this Congress will adjourn passing this immoral budget, meeting the greeds of the special interest friends of the Republicans instead, again, as I said, of the needs of the American people.
Mr. Speaker, as we leave for this Christmas recess, let us say God bless you to the American people by voting against this Republican budget statement of injustice and immorality. And let us not let the special interest goose get fat at the expense of America's children.
The gentleman from Washington State (Mr. McDermott) quoted the prophet Isaiah. My favorite saying from Isaiah is when he said: ``To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.''
Let us vote ``no'' on this budget as an act of worship and for America's children.
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