Conference Report on S. Con. Res. 95, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2005
CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. CON. RES. 95, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005 -- (House of Representatives - May 19, 2004)
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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, this Republican budget reminds me of Saint Augustine's famous prayer, "Lord, make me chaste but not just yet."
The budget resolution covers only 1 year, not the 5 years normally covered, in order to hide the true scope of the deficits their tax cuts have created.
Its pay-as-you-go provisions do not apply to all of the Republican tax cuts.
Oh, Lord, our Republican friends pray, make us fiscally chaste, but not just yet, and only for a year when it comes to the tax cuts we have given to our wealthy friends.
Since taking office, President Bush's reckless tax cutting policy has drilled a massive fiscal hole in our economy. Today, the Republican budget resolution drills even deeper.
Republicans are giving us Energizer Bunny deficits. They keep growing and growing and growing.
But the Republican paradox is that they hate the government, but they have to run for office in order to make sure that the government does not work, and the perfect form of that is when they control the House, the Senate, the White House, the Supreme Court because then they can take the notion of benign neglect which does not harm, it does not hurt, and turn it into designed neglect where the tax cuts are so massive that cuts in Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid and education and the environment and every other program that has been put on the books over the last 60 years, as each year goes by, has a meat cleaver that has to be applied to it in order to make sure that tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percentile is preserved.
Mr. Speaker, this Republican budget reminds me of Saint Augustine's famous prayer, "Lord make me chaste, but not just yet."
The budget resolution covers only one year, not the five years normally covered-in order to hide the true scope of the deficits their tax cuts have created.
And its pay-as-you-go provisions don't apply to all of the Republican tax cuts!
Oh Lord, our Republican friends pray, make us fiscally chaste, not just yet, and only for a year when it comes to the tax cuts we've given to our wealthy friends.
Since taking office, President Bush's reckless tax cutting policy has drilled a massive fiscal hole in our economy. Today, the Republican budget resolution drills even deeper.
Republicans are giving us Energizer Bunny deficits-they keep growing, and growing, and growing .....
Just 3 ½ years ago, CBO projected a $5.6 billion surplus over the next 10 years. Today, we're looking at a whopping $4.4 trillion deficit through 2014.
The Republican budget on the Floor today reinforces this astonishing reversal of fortune. It is a stunning, self-inflicted fiscal wound that will fester for generations yet to come. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the budget deficit in 2004 will top last year's all-time high deficit and reach $600 billion when current borrowing from the Medicare and Social Security Trust Funds are included.
This resolution before us today will essentially freeze non-defense, non-homeland discretionary programs. Its budget proposes $13 billion in mandatory cuts over 5 years under the guise of reducing waste, fraud and abuse. But in reality these cuts could slash veterans' health care, Medicaid, unemployment assistance and other domestic programs that Americans depend on.
The Republican budget scheme calls not for benign neglect of Social Security, Medicare, health care, education and other domestic programs, but designed neglect, in order to siphon away the money the federal government needs to meet its obligations under critical programs that benefit seniors, veterans, the environment and our children.
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill reported that during cabinet meetings early in the Bush Administration, Vice President CHENEY brushed off concerns about tax cuts causing huge deficits by saying "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
The Republican paradox is that Conservatives hate government, but they have to run for office to make sure it doesn't work.
With this budget resolution, they will have succeeded-but their success spells disaster for all of those Americans who depend on the Federal government to help them, and for the future generations who will be stuck with the tab for the tax cuts the Republicans have given to the wealthy.
Mr. Speaker, Vice President CHENEY is wrong. Deficits do matter. Defeat this wrong-headed budget resolution, so that we can stop digging the deficit hole deeper.
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