Providing for Consideration of H. Con. Res. 34, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to the Ryan budget before the House today. I am pleased that the Rules Committee has made the submitted substitute budgets in order so that we can have a full debate on our Nation's priorities over the next several years. And in my view, the Ryan budget represents exactly the wrong priorities.

It would eliminate Medicare as we know it, forcing seniors to pay thousands of dollars more every year for their health care. It would bring back the doughnut hole, allow insurance companies to once again discriminate based upon preexisting conditions, and kick young people off their parents' insurance plans. It would slash needed investments in education, infrastructure, medical research, environmental protection, and hunger programs. And it would still result in deficits as far as the eye can see.

And at the same time, the Ryan budget would give a massive tax cut to the wealthiest Americans. The top rate under the Ryan budget would be the lowest since 1931, which is appropriate, Madam Speaker, because this is a budget that only Herbert Hoover could love. Apparently, the Republican leadership of this House would like to reverse the last 80 years of social progress in this country.

In short, I believe this budget would represent the largest redistribution of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the wealthy in American history. Now, some have called this approach trickle-down economics on steroids. But it's worse than trickle-down, Madam Speaker; it's gusher-up. Over the last several years, working families have been struggling, struggling to find a job, struggling to pay their mortgages, to pay the utility bills and their health care bills, struggling to put food on the table and put their kids through college. To them, the Republicans would say, ``Tough luck.''

At the same time, the very wealthiest Americans and corporations have enjoyed record profits. And to them the Republicans would say, ``You need more help.'' As President Obama said so eloquently yesterday, ``That's not the America that I grew up in. That's not the America I want for my children and for my grandchildren.''

We can and we must do better. The Democratic alternative offered by Mr. Van Hollen is a sensible, practical, and, most importantly, fair way to address our long-term fiscal challenges while at the same time investing in our future. I urge my colleagues to support that alternative and to reject the Ryan budget.

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