Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Chairman, this budget is too weak. It is too weak in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. It is weak on opportunity. It is weak on competitiveness. It is weak on dealing with the tax avoidance and loopholes that would allow us to invest in America. The House Republican budget actually grows the deficit--the opportunity deficit.

A strong budget would help our students earn degrees without mortgaging their futures in order to achieve their full God-given potential, and it would enable an educated workforce that will allow us to be competitive in the world economy.

A strong budget would invest in life-saving medical research, which would grow our economy and would respond to the folks from San Antonio who are here today to ask for more for Alzheimer's research, not by taking it from AIDS or cancer research, but by investing more to get the cures in order to save the lives and create the jobs that America ought to be about.

A strong budget would invest in infrastructure, in roads and rails and bridges and harbors, like the Chinese are doing to move goods and move people and be competitive.

A strong budget would ensure seniors' dignity in retirement, not what AARP says about this budget--that it would weaken the programs that provide the very foundation of health and retirement security for current and future generations.

I urge the rejection of this weak Republican budget in favor of needed investments in our education, our infrastructure, our research, and our retirement security.

The CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. DOGGETT. Those investments can be made by simply asking those who have been so privileged and who have enjoyed so many tax loopholes to pay their fair share for the future of America. I believe it is an investment for a stronger America, which will afford more opportunity to every family.

I ask for the rejection of this budget in favor of a strong budget that is strong for America, strong for our economy, and strong for opportunity.

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