Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2017, Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, 2012
Floor Speech
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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague.
Mr. Speaker, this is not an ordinary House rule we will be voting on today. The resolution deems the provisions of the Republican budget to have ``full force and effect.'' In other words, a vote on the rule today is essentially another vote on the Republican budget plan that protects subsidies for the Big Oil companies, while ending the Medicare guarantee and slashing investments in education. Those wrongheaded priorities were thoroughly rejected in the recent special election in New York.
The American people clearly oppose a one-sided plan that would immediately reopen the prescription drug doughnut hole and tells seniors that in 10 years they will pay $9,000 more for their current set of benefits or take deep cuts in those benefits.
Ladies and gentlemen, the median income of seniors on Medicare is less than $21,000 a year. What kind of budget says we're going to require seniors with median incomes of $21,000 a year to pay $9,000 more in just 10 years while cutting the rate for millionaires, the top marginal tax rate for millionaires by 30 percent? What kind of budget would do it? Well, the budget that was passed by the Republicans a few months ago and the one they're doubling down on today.
We have to have a balanced budget plan. We have to have a plan that addresses this from all aspects, not a plan that the former Speaker of the House described as a radical plan that was driven by right-wing social engineering.
It is very ironic that on the very day we will be swearing in the next Member of Congress from New York's 26th District that we will be voting again on a budget that the people of that district, like people around the country, rejected because--the former Speaker of the House had it right--it was radical and right wing and not the right plan for America.
The SPEAKER. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. POLIS. I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.
Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I thank my colleague.
The question we're facing here is what is the best way forward. We all understand we have to have a budget deficit plan that's predictable and addresses that issue, but why in the world would we adopt a one-sided approach that has those priorities, that says we're going to slash Medicare and give tax cuts for the wealthy?
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