Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2009
Floor Speech
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Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this budget, which represents a down payment on our commitment to restore middle class prosperity. It offers a clear and practical approach to strengthen our economy in a way that helps our workforce thrive. It allows families to reach for that American Dream.
Today, the Bush economy continues to weigh heavily on America's families and businesses. Our Republican colleagues call for fiscal responsibility. That call is a sham. George Bush has added more to the Federal debt than every single President from George Washington to Ronald Reagan. And at the same time, median household income has dropped $1,000. In the Clinton years, median income rose to $6,100. Poor economic growth has left nearly 1.6 million more workers unemployed, and long-term unemployment is up by 62 percent. There are over 3.3 million fewer manufacturing jobs today than at the start of this administration. Incomes are flat while everything else goes up, gas prices, food prices, the cost of health care and education.
This is a budget that is strong. It gets us back to basics. It maintains fiscal discipline while making strong economic growth possible, benefiting all American families. It means crucial funding for the Democratic Innovation Agenda and reforms for our tax policy to reduce burdens on middle class families. It means rejecting the President's cuts to critical unemployment programs. Now is not the time to undermine already vulnerable communities. We can act to rebuild crumbling bridges, fix our roads, reduce congestion and make a serious investment in our infrastructure, paving the way for new growth and opportunity.
This budget makes real investments to help workers and create jobs in a fiscally responsible way. It is a budget that reaches balance in 2012. It reflects our priorities as a Nation and our belief that government has a commitment to its citizens to make critical investments in efficient and renewable energy sources, education, job training and health care, the foundation of a strong economy and future growth. It is about making our workforce more productive and making opportunity real. It is about staying competitive. And we share a mutual obligation to get it right.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Etheridge) for the purposes of engaging in a colloquy.
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I thank the gentleman. You are right in terms of the resolution and its reflection on our priorities. Nothing could be more important than access to education and ensuring that our schools and our students have the resources to succeed.
I would now like to yield to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Bishop) for engaging in a colloquy.
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I thank the gentleman from New York, and I thank him for his commitment.
You've said it well when you talk about investing in the next generation and you talk about our children being in a competitive marketplace and in a global economy. And what this budget does, as you actually stated, is it gives them the skills to compete in that competitive world. And again I thank the gentleman.
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I thank the gentleman.
And I just will reiterate that I think Mr. Gates has it right, and you have it right. It is about an innovation agenda, innovation and what our future is. We can't be stuck where we are. We need to deal with the resources that allow us to compete in a global economy, to have a competitive edge and look at the technology for the future, as well.
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Just to conclude, I do want to say a thank you to the gentleman from Oregon. The real progress that we can make in this budget does require the critical long-term investments in our local communities in energy and in infrastructure, in which the gentleman has been a leader, and that is all contained in this budget proposed by Chairman JOHN SPRATT. I thank the gentleman, and I urge my colleagues to vote for the Spratt budget.
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