The Painful Cost Of The President's Budget

Floor Speech

THE PAINFUL COST OF THE PRESIDENT'S BUDGET -- (House of Representatives - February 08, 2007)

Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, on Monday, the President submitted his budget for our Nation. In that budget, it would be easy to look at it and say, this is all about numbers, it is just a rational approach, it is just a plan, it is an impersonal thing. But, in fact, Madam Speaker, what a budget is is a moral statement about who matters in our society.

What a budget is is a reflection of our own humanity. It talks about who counts, who doesn't, who matters, who doesn't, what are our priorities. In fact, what the budget shows, Madam Speaker, is our values and what we hold dear, and what we believe is really just not that important.

Let me say as we approach this budgetary season, this process in Congress, it is very important to remember that this budget will tell much, much more about our society and who we are than we might imagine. In fact, we should use some guiding principles as we approach this budget. And one of them is very simple, and it is a quote that comes from the great late Senator Hubert Humphrey from my State of Minnesota.

Senator Humphrey said, ``The moral test of any government is how it treats those in the dawn of life, the children; those in the dusk of life, the elderly; and those in the shadow of life, the disadvantaged.''

This budget is a measure of how we stand, how we fit along these very important metrics that Senator Humphrey laid out for us. And by that test, the proposal that the President set forth fails. It doesn't value the hardworking investment, the hardworking energy, the blood, sweat and tears of Minnesotans or Americans.

This budget proposal diminishes the importance of health. It includes $78
billion in Medicare and Medicaid cuts and billions in new premiums that threaten to endanger Minnesota's 691,000 Medicare patients' access to care that they need to lead healthy, independent lives.

This budget proposal does not value children in the dawn of life. It underfunds by $10 billion the State Children's Health Insurance Program. The administration itself argues that it needs $15 billion just to continue covering those children already enrolled in the program. With only $5 billion proposed to cover its neediest children, we will almost certainly add to, not subtract from, the already 86,000 uninsured children in Minnesota.

Minnesota's 407,000 veterans will undoubtedly be hurt by the President's proposed VA funding cuts. Nearly one-half of the military servicemen and women in Iraq and Afghanistan will require health care services for the physical and psychological impairments and traumas of war, yet the President's budget cuts in half the minimum annual increase needed, according to the Veterans Health Administration.

The President freezes funds for college work-study funds and zeroes out Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants at a time when tuition and fees at schools like the University of Minnesota have soared nearly 50 percent in just 4 years.

It eliminates two of Minnesota's most effective local crime fighting tools, the COPS, Community Oriented Policing Service program, and the Justice Assistance Grants.

It reduces Minnesota's Community Block Grant Development program by $17.2 million, which is the cornerstone of Minneapolis and the Fifth Congressional District's affordable housing and revitalization program.

And it goes on: public housing cut by $450 million; Section 8 housing vouchers cut by $500 million; Section 11 disabled housing cut by $121 million; elderly housing cut by $160 million; lead paint prevention cut by $38 million; zero funding for Brownfields redevelopment.

Madam Speaker, a budget is a moral barometer of a nation. It is a reflection of our values. This budget proposal does not value people, but it does value the privileged, because it proposes to maintain permanent tax breaks for the President's wealthy friends.

The President proposes making his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. This includes reducing rates on capital gains and dividends, a phaseout of the temporary repeal of the estate tax, educational tax incentives and child tax credits. The cost to you and me? Well, that is $373.9 billion over 5 years; $1.6 trillion over 10.

Remember the cuts the President proposes? Kids, COPS, Justice Assistance Grants, Community Block Grants. The fact is, Madam Speaker, we have to build a new politics of inclusion, a new politics of generosity, a new politics of peace, a new politics that says that our parents and our seniors are precious, our students are precious, our veterans are precious, and we value them.

And tax cuts for the most privileged people amongst us, there is just not time for that right now. We have to ask all Americans of all wealth positions to pony up for the good of the whole Nation.

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