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Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015

Floor Speech

Date: April 8, 2014
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Entitlements and the Safety Net Government Budget and Spending

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, this budget is worse than a wolf in sheep's clothing. It is like a Dracula in sheep's clothing coming in to suck the blood out of the middle class.

Under the false pretense of deficit reduction and a balanced budget, House Republicans have brought forth another attack on American seniors, students, workers, and middle class families, all the while protecting giveaways for the wealthy and corporations that ship jobs overseas.

This budget kills jobs at home by gutting critical investments in education and technological research and throws a wrench in the engine of American innovation. Instead of laying the foundation for innovation to create the new middle-class jobs of tomorrow or spur new technology, economic growth, and the next generation of entrepreneurs, this Republican budget uses fuzzy math and magic asterisks to hide its attack on the middle class.

This embarrassing budget is an excuse to assault the social safety net that has saved millions of Americans who fell off the economic ladder of opportunity during the Bush recession. Programs like food stamps, unemployment insurance, Medicaid, and job retraining are helping to get Americans back on their feet--Americans who lost their jobs and homes due to no fault of their own, but instead due to the fault of reckless Wall Street speculators. The victims include defenseless infants and dependent children, as well as the sick and the elderly.

The Republican budget uses these programs as punching bags for their reckless agenda today to cut and gut. Republicans' relentless attacks on these programs will only hasten the descent and harden the fall of Americans who are already teetering on the brink.

Mr. Chairman, Republicans are playing their favorite game with the budget--hide and cut it. First, they hide behind budget gimmicks and magic asterisks, and then they cut unnamed programs that all magically fall only upon the backs of the poor, working families, seniors, and the middle class.

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