Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2010

Floor Speech

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2010 -- (House of Representatives - April 02, 2009)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. I want to thank the gentleman from South Carolina, Madam Chair, and commend him for the outstanding job that he has done and, most notably, as we heard from the President the other day, the civility in which you and Mr. Ryan conducted the hearings.

Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle are honorable people. They put forward proposals in an honorable fashion. They have done so for several years. This President and this administration inherited a deep and cavernous hole--from which it will take great effort, but we will make a steady ascent out of--not without having to face the largest deficits in the history of this country that were thrust upon this new President and this new Congress.

Yes, it was tried in the past to send more money, tax dollars back to the Nation's wealthiest 1 percent. Yes, they were lax in terms of oversight and review in what transpired on Wall Street that has brought this Nation the great difficulty that it is working through now.

The answer isn't the way it's been done in the past. The answer is in the hope that this administration and, under the tireless work of Mr. Spratt, that we provide the American people--not the Nation's wealthiest 1 percent, not the barons on Wall Street--but the American people with an opportunity to invest in their health care, to invest in their energy systems.

The other ``do nothing approach'' of wanting to continue to export $200 billion abroad annually to pay taxes to Russia and the OPEC nations and Venezuela is counterproductive.

It doesn't help grow our economy here, it doesn't invest in the American people, it doesn't give them what they need in terms of health care and in education. And they are inextricably tied and linked to our future.

In a knowledge-based society, what we need is the budget that has been put before us today--that brings values back and educates our people, puts them back to work and gives them energy that will allow us to be independent from our foreign competitors.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source