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

Floor Speech

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Ms. PINGREE of Maine. I thank my colleague from New York, former chair of the Rules Committee, who I had the privilege of serving under, for allowing me this time.

Madam Speaker, I am here today to speak against the rule and against the Republican budget. Last year was a good year for CEOs at America's biggest companies. The average CEO got a 12 percent raise and made about $10 million. Now the Republicans want to give that same CEO a 30 percent tax cut. That's right. While the average American family is struggling with gas prices that went up 93 cents in the last year, while working Americans tried to figure out how to afford health care or how to send their children to college, the Republicans have been busy trying to figure out how to cut taxes for CEOs by one-third.

Of course, you can't cut taxes that dramatically for the richest Americans without cutting spending somewhere else. Someone has to pay for the tax cuts. And in the Republican budget, the people who pay the price are seniors and the middle class. Under their budget, seniors will pay when Medicare as we know it is ended and replaced with a voucher system that will be a windfall for insurance companies but will double health care costs for seniors. And the middle class will pay when deductions for home mortgages or health insurance are repealed to pay for those CEO tax cuts.

Madam Speaker, Republicans simply have the wrong priorities, putting the burden of the budget on seniors and the middle class while giving big tax breaks to the wealthy and handing out handouts to insurance companies. I don't share those values. This is not a budget that serves the American people well.

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