Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Ms. DeLAURO. Madam Chair, I rise in strong opposition to this budget.
Hardworking American families are in deep trouble. Their wages have
been stagnant or in decline for 30 years. Their jobs have been sent
overseas by bad trade deals. They have seen none of the benefit of the
economic recovery. These families are struggling to put bread on their
tables and heat their homes, let alone take a vacation or start a
college fund. Many are just one big expense away from disaster.

We should be working to support these families, and make sure that
they do not fall deeper into poverty. Instead, this radical and
regressive budget would pull the rug out from under them.

It would cut $1.8 trillion from Medicaid, and rob 14 million people
of their coverage. It would turn the whole program into a block grant,
leaving millions of families in limbo

It would repeal the Affordable Care Act, increasing by millions the
number of uninsured people in this country.

It would partly privatize Medicare, allowing private insurers to
cherry pick healthy seniors and leaving the rest of the program in
ruins.

It would block-grant the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,
reducing benefits and barring access to this lifeline for millions of
people.

It would freeze the maximum Pell grant, denying low-income students a
chance at college just as they need it more than ever to get into the
middle class.

All this at a time when we are spending close to $1.5 trillion every
year on tax breaks and loopholes--much of it directed toward the
wealthy and special interests. That is the spending we should be going
after.

Hardworking Americans need our help. After years of neglect, we
should be investing in them once more. Instead, this budget leaves them
out in the cold. We cannot allow this to happen. I urge my colleagues
to vote against it.

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