Departments of Labor, Health and Human Sevices, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2008

Floor Speech

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Mr. FEENEY. I thank the gentlewoman.

I would suggest that the real math is that this amendment would still anticipate a $6.5 billion increase, yet it is being called a cut.

I had to come down from my office, because I heard that if you were an advocate for taxpayers, you are now part of the fringe of this Congress. If you are an advocate for fiscal responsibility, suddenly you are part of the fringe. Sadly, I would have to acknowledge, if you care about fiscal responsibility and taxpayers in this Congress, you are becoming part of the fringe.

Increasing the budget expenditures by 4.3 percent is somehow going to lead to the end of civilization and the death of all of the children out there and throwing people out of hospital beds.

I would remind all of my colleagues, we have a 10th amendment in this country. Over the years, we now have a $150 billion-plus annual budget to deal with things like labor, health care and education. It isn't a question of whether or not we are going to spend money in America on health care and education. It is a question of who does the spending and who gets to control it.

I would ask every American, as the Federal budget has skyrocketed and we have taken control and micromanaged their health care and education, has public education gotten cheaper? Has it gotten better? Has America's health care system, as we spend so much money on health care, gotten cheaper and gotten better?

Winston Churchill once famously said, there is nothing one government learns so readily from the last as how to spend other people's money, i.e., the taxpayers.

Sadly, this new majority did not learn the lesson that some of us learned in the last several Congresses: we are spending too much, we are abusing American taxpayers, and the notion is that if you care for children, if you care for people that need health care, you have to confiscate as much money out there from taxpayers and working people as possible and you have to micromanage the way it gets spent on so-called ``their behalf.''

The bureaucrats are happy. The regulators are happy. The politicians in Washington are fat and happy. But the American taxpayer and the people that need real education services and need choices in health care are not happy.

With that, on behalf of the fringe that cares about taxpayers in this Congress, I yield back the balance of my time.

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