Department of Defense and Full-year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Speaker, governing is about choices. Everyone in this body agrees that we need to get our fiscal house in order, bring down the deficit and cut programs that do not work. The question before us is how we choose to get there.

Unfortunately, at almost every turn of this continuing resolution, the majority has chosen to keep special interest giveaways to big corporate lobbyists while making middle class and working families bear the brunt of the spending cuts.

Instead of ending $40 billion in oil company subsidies that this country gives out every year--they are giving them out right now--this resolution cuts $1.6 billion from our attempts to protect the environment, prevent climate change; and it slashes education and infrastructure funding, biomedical research, and food safety.

The chairman of the full committee said a moment ago that we are going to cut this deficit by $40 billion by cutting those programs. We could have made up that difference with the $40 billion in the subsidies that we give to the oil companies today.

Instead of ending billions in subsidies to big agribusiness, it cuts funding for food safety inspections, women's health care under Title X and virtually eliminates the National Health Service.

Instead of ending billions in tax loopholes for corporations who ship our jobs overseas, it slashes funding for vital job training services by a billion dollars.

It ends education programs that our children rely on like Even Start and Teach for America. It ends literacy programs for children in the United States, and at the same time we are providing dollars in Afghanistan to train their youngsters in literacy by cutting it out in the United States of America.

Instead of ending the billions in tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, it guts community health centers by $600 million. It cuts funding for Women with Infant Children by $500 million. It shortchanges public safety. It cuts biomedical research and cuts the Centers for Disease Control by 11 percent.

The American people expect better from us. They want our budget to reflect commonsense, mainstream priorities that are good for our country and good for the middle class. Instead, the resolution offers the status quo on special-interest waste, and that hurts people who are trying to do the right thing.

This budget will hurt our economy, cost us jobs, and put the health and the safety of middle class and working class families at risk. It may be an improvement on the Tea Party budget that this House passed several weeks ago, but that was not the standard we should apply here.

This resolution still gives oil companies and special interests a pass while hurting American families. These are not the right choices for the American people.

I urge my colleagues to oppose this misguided resolution. That would be the right thing to do. We can and must do better.

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