[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 42 (Tuesday, March 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2785-H2786]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               REPUBLICAN PARTY, A PARTY OF CONTRADICTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Wynn] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WYNN. Madam Speaker, now that the first 50 days are past, I think 
we are beginning to see the true colors of the Republican Party. Once 
again they are playing Robin Hood in reverse, taking from the poor to 
give to the rich. When I thought about some of the things that have 
occurred over the last couple of weeks, it appeared to me that what we 
have is a party of contradictions. This is a group that said, What we 
are is pro-life. We believe in 
[[Page H2786]] the sanctity of life. And I am not trying to reopen that 
debate, but I did find it interesting that, when they started cutting, 
they went after the Healthy Start Program and cut $10 million from 
programs that provided prenatal care.
  Madam Speaker, I wonder how, on the one hand, people can say they are 
pro-life, but take away funds that help expectant mothers take care of 
newborns. They took $25 million from the Women, Infants, and Children's 
Program, another program designed to help expectant mothers and 
toddlers obtain the kind of nutrition that they need to survive. It 
seems to me to be a strange contradiction.
  Next they said, Well, you know, we're the party that believes in 
work. Well, that is what the Republicans say. But the first thing they 
did was go after programs that move children, young people, from school 
to work. They cut a total of $3 billion, including 600,000 positions in 
summer jobs.

                              {time}  1945

  Now we can talk all we want about how we can fight crime and we can 
talk all we want about people need to pull themselves up by the 
bootstraps and get out of the wagon and help everybody else pull, but 
when you take money out of the Summer Jobs Program, it seems to me you 
are party in contradiction. Then they said, Oh, yes, sir, we support 
the elderly. We asked them about protecting Social Security; they said, 
Oh, yes, we will do it. We won't touch Social Security. We said, If you 
won't touch Social Security, put it in the bill. They would not do it.
  I think the contradiction is clear, but we go on and find that in the 
area of fuel assistance for the elderly the Republicans decided they 
would cut out the entire program. Two million elderly are engaged in 
the Fuel Assistance Program. That program is eliminated.
  Then, you know, they are also the party that is big on patriotism and 
they always want to talk about a drop of American blood, but that is 
also the crowd that cut 50 million from medical equipment and 
facilities from the veterans program, even at a time when we are 
expecting an increase in the veterans population.
  Now I just heard one of my distinguished colleagues say, Well, you 
don't understand. What we are doing is, we are not cutting these 
programs, we are slowing the growth. I am going to tell you in a minute 
what they are going to do with the funds that they claim that they are 
saving. But before I get to that, I want to talk about the School Lunch 
Program. Because once again they are robbing the poor to give to the 
rich.
  Tomorrow morning I am going to have breakfast with young students at 
Bladensburg Elementary and next week I am going to have lunch with some 
more students at Green Valley Elementary School, and the reason I am 
going is to see what is going on. At Green Valley, for example, 61 
percent of the students are in the free or reduced lunch program. And 
the teachers will tell you that this may be the only meal that these 
young people get.
  So it seems to me that if the Republicans were really serious about 
giving people a chance in life, they would not be taking money out of 
the School Lunch Program.
  Now, let's get back to economics. They say, Well, we are just slowing 
the growth of these programs; we are actually putting in more. What you 
find, ladies and gentlemen, is that when the Republicans are talking 
about defense spending, they alway talk about funds adjusted for 
inflation. But when they talk about social spending, they talk about 
raw numbers, which means that the numbers essentially stay the same 
while inflation eats away at the purchasing power. So consequently, 
those programs that they claim they are increasing are scheduled to 
fail and cannot in fact keep pace with the cost of providing these 
services, cannot keep pace with the cost of food and other products to 
make these programs viable.
  Now, I suppose some would say, You don't understand, Congressman, we 
have to make these cuts to reduce the deficits. If it were going for 
the deficit, that would be one thing, but they are giving it to the 
rich. The cuts that I described are not going for the deficit. In fact, 
they are going to provide tax cuts for the wealthy. Thirty percent of 
the tax cuts that come out of the programs that I just described will 
go to the richest 2 percent of Americans in this country. Thirty 
percent of the tax benefit to the richest 2 percent of Americans. And a 
full 50 percent of the tax breaks won't go to the average American 
citizen that the Speaker likes to talk about. The 50 percent goes to 
the people who make over $100,000.
  So, ladies and gentlemen, it seems to me that we are in a grave state 
of contradiction in that instead of assisting the poor and instead of 
helping them move out of poverty, we are taking resources from them.
  And they say, Well, we are just giving it to the States so the States 
can do it better at less cost and we are just cutting bureaucratic 
costs.
  Ladies and gentlemen, you have to have bureaucracy at the State 
level, so they are substituting State bureaucrats for Federal 
bureaucrats. The cost savings are not going to be there.
  The other issue is this: If the States were inclined to do these 
programs, if the States were inclined to have fuel assistance and 
breakfast programs and lunch programs, why didn't the States do it? It 
was not done until the Federal Government stepped in and said giving 
people a healthy start in life is a national priority and it doesn't 
matter if they live in Oklahoma or Alaska, we want to make sure that 
you get these benefits.
  So you see, Madam Speaker, in the final analysis we have a 
contradiction. We are not helping the poor, we are only helping the 
rich at the expense of the poor.


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