Appointment of Congress on H. Con. Res. 95, Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2006

APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H. CON. RES. 95, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006 -- (House of Representatives - April 26, 2005)

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time, and I thank her for her leadership on this very important issue.

Cleverness says that when you are going to lose, declare victory. That is what the gentleman from Iowa (Chairman Nussle) is going to do; he is going to declare victory, because what he says is there is consensus on his rhetoric. He is correct.

What there is not consensus on are the policies pursued by the chairman, the Committee on the Budget, and the majority. The chairman's budgets have put America $2.4 trillion in additional debt from when he took over just 4 years ago. As a result of putting us $2.4 trillion in additional debt, we are having trouble paying our bills.

This year alone we are going to have a budget deficit of half a trillion dollars. They do not count some of it. They pretend some of it is emergency spending, and they do not even count AMT fixes. There are a lot of things they do not count. But the fact of the matter is that their policies undercut their rhetoric, and the reason the chairman is going to support the gentlewoman's resolution is because of this chart: 44 of his Republican colleagues who said this is bad policy, do not do it. Not Democrats, Republicans. Forty-four of them.

Madam Speaker, I thank you for signing on to that letter, because you knew that the policies proposed by the Republican budget were, in this instance, not policies you wanted to pursue.

Madam Speaker, less than 4 weeks ago, on March 31, the President of the United States said, ``The essence of civilization is that the strong have a duty to protect the weak.'' On that very same day, the majority leader in this body, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), stated, ``The one major responsibility of a government is to protect innocent, vulnerable people from being preyed upon.''

I absolutely agree that we not only have a duty but we have a moral responsibility to protect the weakest and most vulnerable citizens in our Nation. That, I tell the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, is what Medicaid is all about. And the gentleman's rationalization that Medicaid must be fixed, in which he is also correct, we all agree. But like your Social Security solution, of privatizing Social Security because it has financial problems, realizing full well that your privatization does not affect solvency at all, is an empty solution, because you do not know how to solve it yet because you have not come across with a suggestion.

All you have said is to cut the legs out from the most vulnerable, which Medicaid serves. That is what you have said. That is why these 44 colleagues of yours, not Democrats, Mr. Chairman, Republicans, 44 signed this letter.

You know you are going to lose this motion, and so you are going to agree with this motion on some rationalization that we suggest a commission to come up with a solution, because you are right, absolutely right: we know that we have to come up with a solution because we cannot let down the most vulnerable in our society.

But I do not understand, notwithstanding the Speaker's rhetoric, notwithstanding the rhetoric of the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), notwithstanding the chairman's rhetoric, notwithstanding the President's rhetoric; if the President, the majority leader, and the House Republicans are truly concerned about protecting the weak and vulnerable, why are they so intent on slashing Medicaid funding so deeply?

The fact is, Medicaid finances health care for more than 58 million Americans, including 28 million low-income children, nearly 16 million parents, and nearly 15 million elderly and disabled citizens. Yet the House Republicans' budget would cut Medicaid funding by $20 billion over 5 years, a cut so draconian that 44 House Republicans, as I said, have said no to that cut.

I urge my colleagues to support this motion to instruct. My understanding is the chairman is going to support it. I am pleased about that, but nobody ought to misunderstand that ``this is a political judgment that we are going to lose, so we will pretend that we win.'' He did the same thing when the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) offered his motion and we were going to win last year.

We need to protect our vulnerable citizens. The President of the United States is correct, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) is correct. Vote for this motion to instruct. Not only that, I hope the Chairman will take this motion to instruct not just as a request, but as a moral duty.

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