[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 10, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H4789]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H4789]]
                         THE REPUBLICAN BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, we finally got an outline of the proposed 
Republican budget. It is in violation of the Budget Act, a bit late, 
but better late than never.
  I have got to say there is one thing I find I have in common, which 
is I share their objective to get deficit spending under control and to 
bring the Federal Government's budget into balance by the year 2002. 
But past that point, I find we have tremendous differences, and they 
revolve around the basic approach taken by the Republican Party on this 
matter.

                              {time}  2200

  That is, Mr. Speaker, their first assumption is that we will not 
reduce military spending. That is the largest discretionary item from 
the Federal budget. The Pentagon will take no reductions. The Pentagon, 
which will have a budget in fact increased above the President's 
requests in this budget, a budget which is equivalent to the last 
budget of the great cold war with the Soviet Union, we will still fund 
100,000 troops in Europe waiting for the invasion of the Soviet Union 
into West Germany, unified Germany anyhow, somewhere into that region.
  We will still spend $60 billion a year in defense of Japan against 
the Soviet Union. We will still produce stealth bombers with no 
objective, at the cost of $1 billion each. We will produce a myriad of 
other weapons systems that we no longer need that would not have worked 
in any case against our principal adversary of 10 years ago. However, 
we cannot ask for a penny of cuts at the Pentagon. We know they are 
spending every dollar wisely. That is off the table.
  Then we come to the revenue side. On the revenue side, actually what 
we are going to do is reduce revenues in order to reach a balanced 
budget. That does not make sense to most Americans, Mr. Speaker. Most 
Americans who are having a little trouble making their car payment, 
house payment, utility payment, and buying clothes for their kids would 
not think they could reduce their income and get their home budget in 
balance.
  No, indeed, through the miracles in budgeting here in the U.S. 
Congress, that is exactly what we are going to do. According to the 
Republican budget proposal, we will reduce income by $340 billion, not 
decrease the military by a penny, and we will get to a balanced budget. 
One might ask ``How are we to do that, given that the largest single 
discretionary expenditure will not be reduced, the military; given the 
fact that we will reduce our incomes by $350 billion?'' We are going to 
do it by gutting virtually everything else in the Federal budget that 
is important to average and working American families.
  Mr. Speaker, we will eliminate the Women, Infants, and Children 
Program. We will cut back on the School Lunch Program. We will reduce 
student loans, dramatically. After all, who needs a student loan 
program? Certainly not the wealthy, who are going to get very generous 
tax cuts under this proposal. In fact, they will have so much 
discretionary income they will be buying another BMW. They are not 
worried about sending their kids to college.
  Middle-income families, average folks, those struggling to find a way 
for their kids to go to college, sorry, the Federal Government has to 
balance its budget, and it has to give tax cuts to the wealthy, and it 
has to give tax cuts to the largest corporations, repeal the 
alternative minimum tax, and it cannot find a penny of reductions in 
the military budget.
  This is all laid out here in a rather brutal reality by the 
Republican majority in this House. I do not believe that these are the 
priorities of the American people. They are certainly not my 
priorities. We have just received these documents, so, as I stand here, 
I am paging through to look for some of the more interesting portions.
  We can find places to cut back in natural resources and environmental 
protection. We can find places to cut back in energy development, 
particularly in renewable energy resources and cleanup of hazardous 
waste sites. We cannot find much to cut in agriculture, $13 billion a 
year in subsidies. Sam Donaldson getting $75,000 a year to not raise 
sheep on the ranch that he does not live on, we cannot cut that. We 
could not cut Sam Donaldson. He might give some negative press to the 
majority party. Business as usual. When the Democrats were in charge, 
we could not cut Sam Donaldson. Now the Republicans are in charge, they 
cannot cut the Sam Donaldsons in the world. He should get the $75,000 
on the ranch on which he does not live, he is going to live there some 
day. This is not the bare bones budget we need, and it does not make 
cuts in the proper priorities.


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