Providing for Consideration of H.R. 4089, Sportsmen's Heritage Act of 2012, and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Ms. MOORE. Okay. We will have to debate this. The language, as I have construed it, says it shall have force and effect in the House as though Congress, which would include the Senate, had adopted such concurrent resolution. That is subject to debate.

So I want the House to be really clear here that, given this language, there is a real--it seems probable and likely that if we vote ``yes'' for House Concurrent Resolution 112, the Republican budget, which ends Medicare for a voucher system, ends the entitlement under Medicaid, cuts food support, cuts funds by $134 billion over 10 years, that we could be deeming this to be passed.

I am raising again, Mr. Speaker, the question about that use of ``Congress has adopted such concurrent resolution,'' meaning also the Senate.

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Ms. MOORE. Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your lack of clarity.

I raise this point of order because it's important to uncover whether or not the underlying rule for this Natural Resources bill--it's a Natural Resources bill--also deems the Republican budget plan to end Medicare as we know it, slash funding for SNAP.

When it comes to the Republican budget, my Democratic colleagues are most definitely not asleep at the wheel. And we want to take this moment to shed light on what's going on here.

Mr. Speaker, I'm a member of that prestigious committee, the House Committee on the Budget, and a long-time advocate for sound budgetary policy. I recognize the importance of tackling our deficit and debt head-on, carefully balancing both the spending and revenue-raising sides of our ledger.

But House Republicans, led by my dear colleague from Wisconsin, have put out a budget that is neither sound nor balanced. This budget finds a jaw-dropping 62 percent of its $5.3 trillion in nondefense budget cuts over 10 years from programs that serve the most vulnerable of our society, the poor, and I might add in the most vulnerable, women and children, since we've just recently established in this last week that women were very important in our economy.

In addition to the sheer magnitude of these raw numbers, I want to make it clear that the Republican budget contains major departures from current policy. This budget heralds welfare reform as a vital victory and plots the next chapter of so-called ``reforms'' for other areas of the safety net.

Our core programs are not spared by this budgetary trick. This budget takes an aim at Medicare. We're told that by stripping Medicare of its entitled status, cutting $30 billion out of Medicare, that we're going to save it. We're going to save Medicare by subtracting $30 billion. That's not the kind of math I learned at North Division High.

And we're going to set seniors adrift in the private market. Now, this budget does nothing to cut the cost of health care in the private market. It only passes those costs on to seniors.

The cuts to the SNAP program have not gotten as much attention as the Medicare cuts, even though they are cause for collective alarm. As we know, over half of our citizens in the United States, working people, many of them, found themselves with no other income. They had no job. We played phony baloney with the unemployment insurance. They had nothing except SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

And so they had no other income other than the food stamp program,
SNAP, but yet we're going to cut $134 million out of this program and convert it again to a block grant and handcuff SNAP's ability to respond to its increased need.

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Ms. MOORE. Reclaiming my time from the point at which I said I was reclaiming my time. And I ask that he be taxed for that extra time because he already gave me his answer--that, yes, it would be deemed to be passed.

I just want to remind people, in this week when we have learned how important it is to have a stable, good budget for women, that this program slashes funding for Medicaid--two-thirds of adults are women who depend on it. It slashes Medicare--two-thirds of the recipients are women. And 85 percent of Medicare recipients that are older than 85 depend on it.

It cuts support for key programs like childcare, which are important to women, and job training. It cuts core programs like food stamps. Our Presidential candidate said that 93 percent of women lost jobs during the recession. Why would we want to take away the safety net of food stamps when women put food on the table every day trying to feed their babies?

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Ms. MOORE. I want to thank the gentleman for a vigorous debate--at least on my part--and I would ask my colleagues to take a closer look.

This is the Congress of the United States of America. We are supposed to do things very carefully. This is the budget that we're setting out, the moral document for how this country is to be run, and we should not be deeming it as passed, as this resolution calls for.

I would ask all my colleagues to support my point of order and ask them to vote against this resolution.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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