Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Chairman, budgets are a reflection of our values and our priorities: jobs, economic growth, fiscal discipline, fairness, shared sacrifice. Most Americans talk about this all the time when they're at their kitchen table. It's not that difficult.

So quite honestly the question before us is not whether to reduce the deficit, but how. Budgets involve tradeoffs. The Republican budget that is presented to us today along with this Republican Study Committee alternative would say that we must continue the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in this country. We must continue to give a millionaire about $130,000 in tax cuts in this budget even though we are facing the largest deficits our country has experienced.

At the same time, the choice that this Republican budget makes is to say to seniors, We must end Medicare as we know it; we must eliminate the guarantee that you, as a senior, have had for more than 35 years under Medicare to choose your doctor and your hospital; and we must impose upon you an additional $6,000 in health care costs because these deficits are so big.

So as the President said a couple of days ago, under the Republican budget, you would need to take 22 seniors paying 6,000 additional dollars to cover the costs of giving one millionaire in this country the $130,000 tax cut. We must do that under the Republican budget.

Democrats have said we must not do that. We must do this differently. And we must invest again in our people.

On health care, we don't believe that Americans who are seniors should be given a coupon instead of a guarantee. But that's what the Republican budget does. It says, You're going to get a voucher, a coupon, essentially. Once you've used it, the extent of the value of that coupon, the rest of the money to pay for your health care, comes out of your pocket. That's why the President said 6,000 additional dollars for each senior under Medicare under the Republican plan. Coupon care instead of Medicare. That's what you must have under the Republican budget.

Democrats say we must invest in Medicare and find the cuts to get rid of the waste in Medicaid that we know exists. The duplication of services that seniors don't need. We can do this without denying seniors guaranteed benefits.

And finally, we must create jobs, but the Republican budget, most of the leading economists tell us, will cost us 1.7 million jobs. Not create. Cost us 1.7 million jobs. Under the Bush recession, 8 million Americans lost their job. The month that George Bush handed the keys to Barack Obama, we hemorrhaged nearly 800,000 jobs.

We must do this right. Reject the Republicans' budget proposal.

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