Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2014

Floor Speech

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Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Chairman, I thank my colleague from Maryland for his leadership on these very difficult issues.

Mr. Chairman, if you like sequestration that cuts $1.2 trillion in discretionary domestic spending, you're going to love the Republican budget which actually quintuples that. And then there's the RSC budget that goes even further. So while the Ryan budget cuts almost $6 trillion over the next 10 years in investments, this budget, the RSC, cuts $7.7 trillion. Yes, it cuts funding, as the last speaker just said, but at what expense? At what cost? We are, with this budget and with the underlying Ryan budget, we are disinvesting in America. We are walking away from research and development investments. We're walking away from infrastructure investments.

We are walking away from STEM and education investments. Those are the three legs of a stool that makes a great country great.

George Washington understood that and was a big champion of infrastructure investment and education.

Abraham Lincoln understood that in the midst of the Civil War when he invested, and this Congress invested, in the Transcontinental Railroad, in the Land Grant Research College System, in the Homestead Act, yes, and even completing the dome of this building, because they understood it was important to invest in the future of this country.

These two budgets walk away from that future. In fact, they almost guarantee a bleak future for America with respect to the competition. The Chinese aren't making these kinds of mistakes, we should not either.

I urge defeat of both the RSC budget, Mr. Chairman, and the Ryan budget when it comes up.

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