Providing for Consideration of H. Con. Res. 96, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015, and Providing for Proceedings During the Period from April 11, 2014, through Aprial 25, 2014
Floor Speech
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Madam Speaker, budgets are moral documents. These annual documents are really statements of who we are as political parties and as groups and as people. They represent our values. They tell a story about what we believe in and how we would govern.
I had thought that I had come here today to say that this budget before us, the Ryan budget, is simply bad or that it is misguided. Madam Speaker, it is much worse than that.
This is an awful budget. It takes our country in the fundamentally wrong direction.
It seems as though every year we shake our heads wondering how the latest Ryan budget could possibly get worse than the previous year's efforts. And yet, time after time, the Ryan budget manages to pull it off.
This budget is cruel, but sadly, it is not unusual.
The gentleman from Georgia says he can't contain his smiles when he talks about this budget. I don't think there is anything to smile about.
Year after year, the Ryan budget does more and more damage to the social fabric of our Nation. Year after year, it puts the wishes of the rich ahead of the needs of the poor. And year after year, it sacrifices the reality of desperately needed investments at the altar of theoretical deficit reduction.
Let's look at the details. The Ryan budget includes deep cuts. How deep? $791 billion below the sequester number. $791 billion below sequester. That is amazing, Madam Speaker.
Now, I voted against sequester because of the damage it would and it did inflict on our economy. This budget would actually cut nearly $1 trillion on top of the sequester. I thought we wanted to end sequester, not make choices that are even worse.
But that is not the end of the story. According to one estimate, 69 percent of the Ryan budget cuts come from low-income programs. It would shred the safety net. The programs that keep millions of Americans out of poverty and help provide millions of Americans with health care, that will provide millions of children with school meals and early childhood education, received the lion's share of the cuts. That is what the Ryan budget does.
In fact, according to the same estimate, $3.3 trillion of the Ryan budget's $4.8 trillion in non-defense cuts come from low-income safety net programs like Medicaid, SNAP, school breakfast and lunch programs, Head Start, the Supplemental Security Income program, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Child Tax Credits.
Sixty-nine percent of the total non-defense cuts come from these life-changing, indeed, lifesaving programs.
The Ryan budget is successful at one thing: it deepens the divide between the rich and poor in this country. It successfully makes life harder for those who are already struggling to make ends meet.
If you are hungry in America, you would see food benefits cut by $137 billion.
If you are a middle class college student in America, hopefully you can win the lottery, or have a rich uncle, because Pell grants would be cut by $125 billion by freezing the maximum grant and cutting eligibility.
If you are a low-income working mother in America who gets health care through Medicaid, you would join at least 40 million Americans who will become uninsured by 2024 after the Ryan budget cuts at least $2.7 trillion from Medicaid.
And if you are a middle class family with kids in America just trying to get by in this sluggish economy, you would see your taxes go up by $2,000.
But if you are fortunate enough to be very rich in America, you lucked out. It is time to pop the champagne because you make out like a bandit. The oil companies keep their tax breaks. Businesses can keep putting money in overseas accounts just to avoid paying taxes here in America.
And if you are a millionaire?
Get ready for a big fat check from Uncle Sam. That is because anyone making $1 million a year will see a tax cut of at least $200,000.
On top of these disastrous policies, the Ryan budget, once again, goes after seniors. This version, once again, ends the Medicare guarantee and reopens the Medicare prescription drug doughnut hole.
As a result of these cuts, seniors will see their traditional Medicare premiums soar by an average of 50 percent. As AARP says:
Removing the Medicare guarantee of affordable health coverage for older Americans by implementing a premium support system and asking seniors and future retirees to pay more is not the right direction.
Now these policies have real world ramifications. Last week, Madam Speaker, an incredibly strong and courageous group of women called the Witnesses to Hunger returned to Capitol Hill to talk about their struggles as low-income, working women trying to make ends meet.
It takes guts to come here to Capitol Hill to tell your story and challenge Members of Congress to do better, and that is exactly what these impressive women did. They told their stories. They talked about their struggles, and they challenged us to do more to help so they don't fall back into poverty.
These women, and the millions of Americans like them who work hard every day, don't earn enough to make ends meet. They are having to choose between rent and food and electricity.
These women and their children aren't line items in our budget. They aren't statistics in our reports. They are people, people who just want to have a roof over their heads, food on their tables, and an education system that will help their children learn and succeed.
They want to go to college and not have to worry about losing their scholarships just because they are a single mother and need to work a night job to feed their child.
These women, and millions of Americans, would be hurt, they would be devastated by the Ryan budget. I am glad there are people who are able to make a lot of money in this country. I have nothing against rich people, but we shouldn't penalize those who are struggling.
Madam Speaker, we should be providing ladders of opportunity to help people get out of poverty and move into the middle class. When people need a helping hand, we should provide that assistance, whether it is a job training program, early childhood education, health care, or something as simple and as basic as food.
These aren't handouts; they are hand-ups. They are investments in our future, and we should be providing opportunities to strengthen our communities and the middle class through job creation, higher education, and advancing research and innovation.
This is a great country. We have done great things, but we have begun to think small. That is what the Republican majority has succeeded in doing. They have got us to start thinking small rather than big. We don't tackle big problems anymore. We use deficit reduction as an excuse to do nothing.
What we need to do is tackle big issues like ending hunger. We should tackle the issue of ending poverty. We should want to strive for a country that benefits not just the few who are rich but the many who are poor.
The Ryan budget would set us back. It would do real damage to millions and millions of real Americans, our neighbors, our friends, our fellow parishioners.
As Pope Francis has written in his Papal Exhortation:
I ask God to give us more politicians capable of sincere and effective dialogue aimed at healing the deepest roots, and not simply the appearances of the evils in our world. Politics, though often denigrated, remains a lofty vocation and one of the highest forms of charity, inasmuch as it seeks the common good.
Inasmuch as it seeks the common good. This budget, this Ryan budget, this Republican budget, or whatever you want to call it, does not seek the common good. This budget fails that basic test that Pope Francis outlined. It does not seek the common good. It deserves to be defeated.
We can do so much better in this Congress and for our country. I am ashamed that this is what we are debating here today, that this is the Republican vision for our future.
This the wrong way to go. Democrats and Republicans should say ``no'' to this.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
I think one of the differences between what the Republicans have proposed and what Democrats are proposing is that what they propose is just one thing--cuts. Cuts and cuts and cuts in programs for the most needy in this country, and more tax cuts for the most wealthy.
What the Democrats have proposed is a more balanced approach. Yeah, there needs to be some sacrifice, but we also understand the importance of investment.
If you want to find a way to balance the budget, why don't we find a cure for Alzheimer's disease? Not only would that help improve the quality of life for millions of people, but it would also eliminate all the fiscal problems that Medicaid has.
Let's find a cure for diabetes. Let's find a cure for cancer.
Why aren't our energies devoted toward investing in medical research?
And yet the Ryan budget that we are now debating would devastate medical research in this country. It would devastate it.
We have researchers coming in to visit us who are telling us that China is offering them a better package to do their medical research, Singapore. I want these cures to be found here in the United States. I want to invest in that research that will not only save people's lives, but create jobs and also save money.
Yet, my friends on the other side, they devastate investments in medical research. They devastate investments in scientific research. They devastate investments in transportation.
Their way is one way: cut programs that help the most needy, and give tax breaks to the Donald Trumps of the world. Donald Trump doesn't need any more help. Middle class families, those struggling to get into the middle class, do need help.
Madam Speaker, I am going to urge that we defeat the previous question, and if we do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 4415, the House companion to the unemployment insurance extension bill passed by a bipartisan majority in the Senate just yesterday. Representative Kildee introduced this bill just hours after Senate passage.
Today, on Equal Pay Day, my amendment will also bring up H.R. 377, Rosa DeLauro's Paycheck Fairness Act. It is shameful that women in America still make an average of only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues. The Paycheck Fairness Act will require equal pay for equal work.
Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee) to discuss our proposal.
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Madam Speaker, I think what you just saw on the floor is frustration. In the supposedly open House that my colleagues brag about--erroneously, I should add--this issue of comprehensive immigration reform has failed to be given a day on the floor.
The United States Senate, in a bipartisan way, passed comprehensive immigration reform, a bill that would, by the way, raise close to a trillion dollars over the next 20 years to pay down our debt, and yet we can't even get it scheduled on the House floor. The leadership here continues to block it, and Mr. Cárdenas and Mr. Polis last night in the Rules Committee thought that,
given the fact that there is such an incredible savings here, it was relevant to this.
And, by the way, the Rules Committee can do whatever it wants to. The Rules Committee could issue the necessary waivers to allow this to happen. There is no reason at all why this couldn't have been brought up today except that a majority in the Rules Committee said no. I mean, that is the reason why.
So what you see is frustration. What you see is frustration not just by Democrats. There are people on the Republican side who, as well, would like to see us debate comprehensive immigration reform, and instead we are blocked at every single avenue. So that has to change; otherwise, you are going to see more of the kinds of displays that you just witnessed.
With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Madam Speaker, I want to agree with my friend from Oklahoma that Mr. Ryan has given us a choice. He has presented us a budget that would end Medicare as we know it; it would slash the social safety net to smithereens; it cuts SNAP by $137 billion; and it would damage the National Institutes of Health and transportation funding. Pell grants would be cut. I could go right down the list. Yeah, I know we have got a choice here, and people ought to understand what that budget is all about.
My friends on the other side may be proud of this. Again, I find that puzzling, because the notion that the only way to balance the budget is by hurting poor people or hurting the middle class, I don't agree with.
You talk about sacrifices. Why are all the sacrifices on the backs of middle-income families or on the backs of the poor in this country? The rich get a tax cut. The rich get a tax cut. Middle class families get a tax increase. Poor people get their food stamps taken away from them. Why is that always the choice that you provide Members of this House? Why are those the only people that sacrifice? I just find it unconscionable, quite frankly.
With that, Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).
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Madam Speaker, I would just say to the gentleman from Florida that national defense includes more than the number of weapons we have in our arsenal. It also include the quality of life for our people here at home, and these programs that he is denigrating, like SNAP, for example, I should remind him there are an extremely high number of military families that rely on SNAP to get by and a high number of veterans who do as well.
Basic food, they are looking for helping with putting food on the table. So before anybody denigrates those programs, understand that they contribute to our national defense as well. They are feeding our military families and veterans because our returning veterans can't find jobs that pay a livable wage.
At this time, it is my pleasure to yield 6 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), the distinguished ranking member of the Rules Committee.
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Madam Speaker, I insert in the Record a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities entitled ``Ryan Budget Would Slash SNAP by $137 Billion Over 10 Years, Low-Income Households in all States Would Feel Sharp Effects.''
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question and to vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.
The Ryan budget will create a government without a conscience. It is cruel. This budget is a rotten thing to do to poor people; it is a rotten thing to do to the middle class. It is an outrage.
So please, again, vote ``no'' on the previous question, and vote ``no'' on the underlying bill.
This really is an embarrassment. We could do so much better in this Chamber. The people in this country deserve much better than what we are giving them.
With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
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