Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2015
Floor Speech
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Mr. CLYBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gen tle lady for yielding me this time.
Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the Republican budget and in support of the alternative put forth by the Congressional Black Caucus.
Put simply, the Republican budget is bad for seniors, bad for young people, and bad for America's economic future. It may be a path to prosperity for the investor class in our society, but it is a path to permanent struggle for America's working families.
The Republican budget is a disaster for our senior citizens. It brings back the doughnut hole for Medicare prescription drugs. We eliminated the doughnut hole with the Affordable Care Act, but this Republican budget brings it back.
The Republican budget ends the Medicare guarantee of earned benefits and replaces it with a risky voucher scheme. American workers deserve the guarantee of earned benefits. This Republican budget slashes $732 billion from Medicaid. Mr. Chairman, two-thirds of Medicaid's funds serve seniors and disabled Americans.
The Republican budget is a disaster for our children and young people. It guts Head Start and cuts school lunches and Pell grants.
This budget repeals the Affordable Care Act provision that allows young people to stay on their parents' health plans until their 26th birthday. It allows discrimination against people with preexisting conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and asthma.
This Republican budget rigs the system so that only the children of the well-off and well-connected can get ahead, while the children of the less well-off are consigned to a life of permanent struggle.
This budget rejects the one measure that could immediately unleash more economic activity and grow our economy: comprehensive immigration reform.
In contrast, the CBC budget continues our long history of fiscal soundness and moral responsibility. We make tough choices to secure our financial future, but we do not believe that the most vulnerable in our Nation should be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.
The CBC budget focuses on eradicating poverty in America through robust investments in education, infrastructure, affordable housing, manufacturing, and small business development. Our budget targets funds to needy communities.
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Mr. CLYBURN. It contains our 10-20-30 initiative, requiring that at least 10 percent of Federal funds in certain accounts are directed to areas that have had a poverty rate of 20 percent or more for the last 30 years.
Mr. Chairman, our budgets should reflect our Nation's values and establish what kind of future we want for our citizens. It is fundamentally unfair that 69 percent of the cuts in the Republican budget come from services to low-income and hardworking Americans.
We can do better. We must do better. The CBC budget is better. We should support it and reject the Republican budget.
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