CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005 -- (House of Representatives - March 24, 2004)
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Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Menendez).
(Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. MENENDEZ. Mr. Chairman, I want to start off by thanking the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for his incredible work on this budget and for helping the American people understand what is at stake here. And as far as I have heard, it has been scored so it seems to me we are talking about different things here.
Here are the top 10 reasons we Democrats oppose the Republican budget resolution. First, it makes the ballooning deficit even worse.
It fails to protect Social Security. It spends every penny of the Social Security surplus over the next 5 years, $1 trillion.
It offers more of the same failed economic policies that have already caused the loss of 3 million private sector jobs during this administration.
It underfunds education and, specifically, the No Child Left Behind Act by over $9 billion less than was promised.
It provides for $1.3 billion less than the Veterans' Affairs Committee on a bipartisan basis recommended for our country's veterans.
It cuts homeland security at a time of national insecurity below even the President's request by nearly $857 million.
It fails to protect the Nation's environment.
It cuts funding for the National Institutes of Health, Maternal and Child Health.
It creates long-term deficits that will undermine economic growth and fails to extend unemployment insurance to those who have lost their jobs.
And during the war on terror, it actually cuts benefits to widows of military retirees, limits improvements to military housing, and discontinues last year's TRICARE for Reservists.
And the President's tax cut proposal is a gift that keeps on taking, taking from our children, our families, and our seniors. His tax cut takes from the next generation and replaces with that taking a mountain of debt on the backs of our children. America simply cannot be red, white and broke and meet its challenges at home and abroad; but that is exactly where the Republican budget takes us.
Therefore, it is the duty of Democrats to bring these wrong priorities for America to the light of day, and to offer an alternative that reflects the priorities of America's working families by stimulating the economy, by creating jobs, by expanding educational opportunity, by improving health care, by strengthening homeland security, those first responders we see the President take the pictures with, but then he goes ahead and cuts their funding dramatically. It is outrageous. Tell him to go see the firefighters now that he cut a quarter of a billion dollars, and after he basically zeroed out the Safer Act to help communities hire more firefighters, or the interoperable communications equipment that is necessary. Tell the firefighters how you are their friend and how you are their heroes with this budget.
We do all of our things, however, in a positive way by creating opportunities, and, yes, helping the firefighters and all those who provide emergency management for homeland security while bringing our budget into balance in 8 years.
In fact, over the next 5 years the Democratic budget is going to provide over $9 billion more for education and training than the Republican budget, $11 billion more for health care programs than the Republican budget, $17 billion more for environmental protection than the Republican budget, nearly $6 billion more for first responders for port security, for aviation security, and for border security than the Republican budget.
And the Democratic budget also targets $2 billion in fiscal year 2005 to support our troops and includes the full $2.5 billion increase that the Committee on Veterans' Affairs says is critically needed for our Nation's veterans.
It is time for Republicans to stop lamenting the deficit they recklessly created and join us in balancing the budget just like American families have to do every day of their lives, and give us an opportunity for a future of hope, growth and opportunity, not a future of debt and despair.
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