Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, a moment ago, the gentleman from Mississippi said that families were sitting around at their kitchen table. Yes, they are sitting at their kitchen table, and they are crying.

They do not have a job. Their unemployment benefits have not been extended. Their wages have stagnated. They can't afford to send their children to college; and this majority fiddles while Rome burns and refuses to address any of these issues, but they certainly make it easy to lower the top tax rate for the richest Americans.

I rise in strong opposition to this cruel budget proposal; yet again, the House majority has put forward an ideological plan that puts all of the burdens on the most vulnerable among us, especially women and families.

Today is Equal Pay Day, a day that women's earnings finally catch up to what men made in 2013, but the fact is this dubious milestone, that it even exists, is a sad testament to the financial pressures that women and families face.

This budget proposal puts more pressure on women and families. Two-thirds of seniors in poverty are women. They rely on the bedrock American institution of Medicare to survive. This budget ends Medicare as we know it. It turns it into a voucher program. Seven in 10 elderly individuals, six in 10 nonelderly individuals rely on Medicaid, they are women.

The budget proposes $2.7 trillion in cuts to

Medicaid and other support that help low- and middle-income families buy health insurance.

WIC provides critical food benefits to 8.3 million pregnant postpartum women, infants, and children across America. The budget drastically slashes the program, hurting the same family struggling the most in this economy.

It devastates food stamps, the program in which almost two-thirds of the adult participants are women and children, and they account for nearly half of all recipients.

It cuts 170,000 kids from Head Start, educational services for 3.4 million disadvantaged children. It cuts the Pell grant by over $125 billion. It allows the insurance companies to, once again, charge women more than men.

Mr. Chairman, it cuts Pell grants, and yet it allows insurance companies to, once again, charge women more than men and to treat pregnancy as a preexisting condition.

According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, 69 percent of the cuts in the Republican budget would come from programs serving low- and moderate-income people. This Ryan Republican budget is not a reflection of America's values. It is not who we are as a country. It is an ideological document that threatens American families.

I urge my colleagues to reject it.

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