Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. JEFFRIES. Mr. Chairman, I thank my distinguished friend for yielding.
The GOP budget is a product of the same type of extreme philosophy that gave rise to the reckless Republican shutdown last year. It is like a heat-seeking missile aimed directly at the American people. It is a parade of horribles too numerous to catalogue, but in the time that I have allotted I will try to highlight the most egregious aspects.
It will cut $125 billion from the SNAP program, making it difficult for millions of food insecure Americans to get access to the nutrition needed to live a healthy life. It will cut $260 billion from higher education spending, depriving young Americans of the opportunity to get a college education and robustly pursue the American dream. It will cut $732 billion from the Medicaid program, making it hard for older Americans to get access to this vital safety net program. It will turn Medicare into a voucher program--that is a Trojan horse--effectively ending Medicare as we know it. It will balance the budget on the backs of working families, middle class folks, senior citizens, the poor, the sick, and the afflicted.
The Democratic plan is designed to create progress for the greatest number of Americans possible. The Republican plan is all about prosperity for the few, and for that reason we should vote it down.
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Mr. JEFFRIES. I thank the distinguished gen tle lady, my good friend, from the Badger State for her leadership.
Mr. Chair, 50 years ago, President Lyndon Baines Johnson came to this very Chamber and declared a war on poverty, and as a result of the legislative efforts that were brought about in connection with the Great Society vision, tens of millions of Americans were lifted out of an impoverished condition and set on the trajectory toward the middle class.
The CBC is here today because we recognize that there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, particularly in the aftermath of the collapse of the economy, the Great Recession, the worst economic condition since the Great Depression.
That is why the CBC budget invests in the American economy, invests in job training and education, invests in transportation and infrastructure, invests in research and development, invests in affordable housing, invests in creating manufacturing jobs.
The CBC budget would renew unemployment compensation in order to make sure that the long-term unemployed, who are collateral damage of the Great Recession, can get back into the mainstream of our economy.
The CBC budget will give Americans a raise to $10.10 an hour by lifting the minimum wage. By the way, that will help grow the economy because we have a consumer demand problem, and as a result of the increase in spending resulting from the minimum wage increase, everybody in America will benefit.
The CBC does this in a fiscally responsible way that will reduce the deficit, but it does it in a manner that does not balance the budget on the backs of working families, middle class folks, senior citizens, the poor, the sick, and the afflicted; and that is not even an exhaustive list of what the Ryan budget does.
So I am urging all of our colleagues to vote ``yes'' on the CBC alternative, invest in America, invest in our economy, and invest in our workers.
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