[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 12, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H1797-H1802]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[[Page H1797]]
THE FEDERAL BUDGET
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Musgrave). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New York (Mr.
Owens) is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. OWENS. Madam Speaker, we are about to begin the process of
passing a budget. There are other matters on the agenda here in
Washington, of course. We have just heard one, the medical malpractice
and the capping of awards to patients. That is important. There are not
many important things that we have considered so far this year. There
are a few, but nothing is more important than the budget. The budget is
part of a bigger process. The budget and appropriations process are
inseparable. They go together. It is as if the appropriations process,
which is the final allocation of funds for functions of government,
begins with the budget. The budget is going to set the parameters. The
budget is going to outline where the appropriations process can go. It
is important that as many of our Members as possible focus now on the
preparation of the budget. The budget is a moral statement. It is a
moral statement of what the values of a nation are at a particular
time. There may be some nations which cannot make such a moral
statement with their budget. If it is Bangladesh or Haiti or a number
of very poor countries in the world, they may have high moral values,
they may want to educate all of their primary school children and high
school children, they may want to send all their children to college
for free, but they do not have the resources, they do not have the
funding, so the moral choice is not theirs. In the United States of
America, the richest nation that ever existed on the face of the Earth,
we make moral choices because we have the resources. We can do whatever
we want to do with our resources, but we choose to do in some cases
outrageous things with our resources and neglect very important
matters, such as education, such as health care.
You cannot separate the budget from the discussions of war and peace
either. We are slowly proceeding at an escalating pace toward a war
with Iraq. The war with Iraq cannot be dealt with and discussed and
value judgements cannot be made about that war without also considering
the budget and appropriations process. It is the budget. How much will
the war cost? Can we afford the war at the same time we provide for the
needs of our own people in a reasonable manner? How much will war and
peace affect the decisions that are made by the Members of Congress
from here until we end the final appropriations process?
It is very interesting that the President, who starts the budget
process by submitting his recommended budget to the Congress, has
chosen not to include in the budget figures any recommended budget for
the war in Iraq. Everybody knows that we are preparing for war. We have
nearly 200,000 troops already in the area of Iraq, more specifically in
Kuwait just across the border from Iraq. It is pretty clear that the
policy of our administration wants to move us toward war, despite the
fact that the rest of the civilized world, or large parts of the
civilized world are raising their voices in protest. We are moving in
that direction, but it is not in the budget. What kind of moral
statement is it that we do not even bother to mention the war in the
budget? Is that a statement that it should be a secret document, that
whatever the budget for the war in Iraq might be it is going to be too
outrageous to discuss in public? That will be a bit un-American. There
is no way you can appropriate large amounts of funds without coming
here to this floor through the Congress. So eventually we are going to
have a budget for the war in Iraq on top of the present budget.
The present budget already is a budget that has gone into deficit. We
are going to expend more money, if we follow the President's
recommendation, than we take in. So war and peace considerations will
have to be a part of this process of deliberation about the budget. I
do not want to spend the time today discussing the war. I want to talk
about the budget. But I must say that an activity which will drain such
a great amount of money from the coffers of the American people, an
activity which will put a strain on the budget-making process for all
other functions, must be dealt with to some degree here.
I am against going to war with Iraq. I think that we are less secure.
Every day we move toward a war with Iraq makes us less secure, not more
secure. I think we are as a people more in danger every day we move
toward the war with Iraq. I made that statement back in the fall when
we had on the floor consideration of whether or not to give the
President the approval to go to war, knowing that the consideration was
war in Iraq. I made that statement. I said that North Korea and
Pakistan are two priorities that we should look at before we consider
war in Iraq.
Most people do not know that there is a great danger lurking in
Pakistan along the borders and in the whole country. There is a danger
that a nation that already has nuclear weapons, that is our ally, that
that government may be overthrown. That government teeters on the edge
of disaster because there are a tremendous number of people in high
places in the military establishment, in the intelligence apparatus,
who are pro-al Qaeda. There are a tremendous number of people who are
pro-the Taliban. In fact, the Taliban that we just defeated in
Afghanistan was created in Pakistan with the help of the Pakistani
military. There are tensions seething, there is fanaticism there with
respect to the battle between India and Pakistan over Kashmir that
warps the reasoning of lots of people. And it is possible that
fanatics, assisted by professional military people and the fervor of
the al Qaeda movement, could overthrow the government of Pakistan, our
ally, our biggest Muslim ally in the world.
Pakistan has always been our ally. Throughout the Cold War it was our
ally. It is our ally now at a time when it is very dangerous for the
Pakistani government to be our ally. But they are there. They have the
courage, they are supporting the effort, the war against terrorism in
Afghanistan and in that region, and it appears they may support the
President in his quest to make war on Iraq. But this ally is in danger.
I think that I am one of the few people who would put them first on the
list of dangerous situations that confront America. They have nuclear
weapons already. They have nuclear weapons. They are a Muslim nation.
Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda organization will have nuclear weapons
if they capture the government or take over the government of Pakistan.
Moving beyond Pakistan, of course, everybody is aware now--they were
not aware last fall to the extent they are now--that North Korea poses
a threat and every day we move toward Iraq, obsessed with attacking
Iraq, we are ignoring the danger in North Korea. North Korea is a
mystery. The leaders there are unpredictable, unknown. This is a nation
that defies reason in that they have the technical know-how, they have
a very educated population, a population that is able to produce high
technology. They have some of the most efficient rockets in the world.
They are in the position now to create nuclear weapons. In fact, it is
predicted soon and they may have two or three nuclear bombs already.
{time} 2030
They have that kind of technology, they have that kind of capability,
they have that kind of know-how. At the same time, they cannot feed
themselves. The government cannot run a country which will provide food
for the population, and the population is like captives to a government
that cannot provide enough food for them.
This is a situation probably unprecedented in history, and
unpredictable; and we should pay much more attention to it. We should
be watching it much more closely. We should have our resources poised
to deal with the unknown, the dangerous unknown, that exists in North
Korea.
As far as Iraq is concerned, Saddam Hussein certainly is a person
that should be dealt with. I think the fate of Milosevic, who is now on
trial in the world court, indicted as a war criminal, that is the fate
that should await Saddam Hussein; and we should push in every way
possible to get that accomplished. But going to war with the people of
Iraq in the manner we are proposing will not accomplish that task in a
way which leaves us covered in dangerous spots elsewhere in the world.
It
[[Page H1798]]
also alienates. Because of the fact that we are about to wage a full
scale attack on a whole nation, it alienates large numbers of allies
that we may think we do not need; but we do need those allies.
So war and peace considerations are as much a part of the budget
considerations as any others, because we are already in a situation now
where a new Department has been created, Homeland Security, and the
Homeland Security budget is a new strain on the total nondefense
budget.
We will find in the President's budget a number of cuts in a number
of proposals and propositions that move in a way which will place the
burden of this war on the backs of the poorest people. We have
proposals under way now which are outrageous with respect to robbing
the poor to pay for our government. We have a recession. We have the
impact of September 11. There are a number of forces in motion that
keep the recession going, and it is getting worse.
I am not in a position where I have the expertise to explain why the
recession is moving the way it is totally, but we know some of the
factors. I just mentioned two of them.
We have serious problems with respect to budgeting for every State
and every city across the country. Certainly in my home State of New
York, we are deep in a situation where the expenditures loom high over
the expected revenue in New York State.
In New York City, there is still a $2 billion to $3 billion gap in
the budget. It is very serious across the Nation, of course, as I said
before. There are many cities and States in the same position.
There are cities where the local education agency within the city is
projecting cutting the number of days that children will be allowed to
go to school. There are other cities that are projecting deep cuts in
education and health care. There are cities where health care cuts are
already taking place in large amounts.
In my City of New York, the mayor was criticized by the establishment
press for allowing the Medicaid costs to increase. The mayor has merely
done his moral duty and allowed the agencies responsible for providing
Medicaid to give Medicaid to those who are eligible for Medicaid.
Our previous mayor had gone to great lengths to knock people off the
welfare rolls who really had a right to be there. They were eligible.
But in addition to knocking them off the rolls, our previous mayor
would not counsel and pressured the departments responsible for
administering Medicaid and food stamps, to the point where they would
not tell people who were knocked off the welfare rolls that they still
had a right to Medicaid or still had a right to food stamps. So at this
point, half of the people eligible for food stamps in New York City are
not receiving food stamps, on the one hand. On the other hand, the food
pantries and the soup kitchens have long lines of people who need food,
many of whom are eligible for food stamps, and they do not know it
because of the oppressive policies of the previous administration.
The administration in power now says we should do the right thing.
People who qualify for Medicaid should get Medicaid. They are under
attack for raising the cost of city government. By raising Medicaid and
dealing with people's health care, we are threatening the budget; and
that is a reason the press considers it a legitimate reason to
criticize the mayor.
``Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'' is not just a loose
statement made somewhere by the Founding Fathers. Life comes first,
before liberty, before the pursuit of happiness. Life is related to
health care. You have to be healthy; you have to stay alive. We are
last among the industrialized nations. I understand that has to be
translated into the provision of the best possible health care for
every citizen.
If Canada can afford a plan which takes care of all the citizens of
Canada, surely the United States can afford such a plan also. If
Germany, France, if all the industrialized nations can afford to
provide health care for all, surely the rich and powerful United States
could also provide health care for all.
In this budget process that we are about to undertake, proposals are
being made by the White House that Medicaid will be treated the way we
have treated welfare reform. We are going to use Medicaid dollars to
bribe the States. We are going to use Medicaid dollars in the same way
that welfare reform dollars were used.
How were they used? In the Welfare Reform Act we offered every State
funding at a certain level for their program for the poor people. At
the same time, we gave them the leeway to keep all the funds that they
were able to garner as a result of people who were taken off the
welfare rolls. If you drive down the welfare rolls in whatever way, it
was assumed it would be legitimate, that you would really check the
eligibility of people, that the welfare rolls would go down, because we
had programs that would help poor people, help them to get jobs, help
them to find other means to sustain themselves. But in most States
there was a reckless move to knock off as many as possible.
So many people were knocked off the rolls in New York City that we
had to go to court and get a court order to force the city under the
previous administration of Rudy Giuliani, force him to allow people to
have a fair hearing. At one point the requirement that before you were
pushed off the rolls a family had a right to a fair hearing, that was
just pushed aside; and we had to get the courts to order that the fair
hearing would be reinstated. The city dragged its feet and did as few
fair hearings as possible.
Welfare rolls went way down. It benefited the State and city, and it
was a way to fill the petty cash drawers of the city and the State on
the backs of the poor.
They did that most successfully in the State of Wisconsin. Wisconsin
is the home of the present Secretary of health and welfare. Wisconsin
was one of the worst in forcing the welfare costs down and transferring
the funds that were supposed to be used for the poor into other
functions.
For that, the Governor of Wisconsin was rewarded and brought to
Washington. So now the Governor of Wisconsin presides over a new
proposal to take Medicaid and conduct the same kind of swindle with
Medicaid that was conducted with welfare reform dollars. It is Robin
Hood in reverse, robbing the poor to take care of the well-off or to
take care of the governments of the States and the localities.
But the amount of money involved in the Medicaid swindle is so much
greater than the amount of money involved with the welfare reform; so
that bribe, that carrot held out there, is quite tempting for Governors
who are now suffering with tremendous budget problems.
I say, in our budget, why do we not follow the Democratic stimulus
package? The Democratic stimulus package says let us give money back to
the States in an honest revenue sharing program. In that revenue
sharing program, our Democratic Caucus did not do it to the degree I
wanted, but you would target some areas.
I would target education, I would target Medicaid, and say we are
giving you the money back. It is your money. Really all money comes
from localities and States. The Federal Government does not generate
any money. It is the money that comes out of taxpayers that live in
States and local areas.
So we are giving back the money, a certain amount of money, to help
with the budget problems that you have at the State and local level;
but a certain percentage must be spent on education, and a certain
percentage must be spent for health care also.
But that is honest revenue sharing, with controls and monitoring; and
it is up front. What we are saying instead is we will give you your
Medicaid money at the level that you have now, and that is it. Once we
give it to you at that level, it will never go up; but you can use the
money appropriated, for the next 5 years at least, you can use that
money that you do not need for people who are on Medicaid.
If you drive down the Medicaid rolls, deny care to people that need
it, all that you save can be utilized in some other way. This is called
block grants, and there are other names for it. But that is the
Republican majority's way of dealing with a major crisis in the country
in terms of States and local governments and their budgets.
There is also a proposal that section 8 housing, housing programs for
the
[[Page H1799]]
poor, shall also be block-granted in the same manner. So you can take
something from the pot for the poor people by taking from welfare
reform, you can take some from the pot that is generated by Medicaid,
you can take some from section 8, and on and on it will go, because
obviously the Republican majority's philosophy of States' rights is
being distorted to mean the States' rights to Federal dollars that are
really intended for poor people.
So we are here considering the budget, and these are the kinds of
overriding considerations that are taking place.
I have been appointed by the Congressional Black Caucus to coordinate
an alternative budget. An alternative budget is an alternative to the
Republican majority budget that is going to be presented here. It is
also an alternative to what the President has presented.
Nobody knows exactly how much the Republican majority budget that
will come to the floor of the House will look like the President's
budget, but we assume that it will be very close to the President's
budget.
I am not certain that this Republican majority will allow alternative
budgets on the floor yet. I do not know whether that decision has been
made or not. But I hope the decision is made to allow us to present
alternative budgets on the floor.
Nothing is more important, as I said before, than the budget process,
the budget process which opens up the appropriations process, the
process that is the most important thing that government can engage in.
And we need time to debate it; we need time to discuss it.
We among ourselves are overwhelmed by the complexities of our
government, even before 9-11, even before the mobilization for the war
on Iraq. This is a complicated era. We live in complicated times of
governments. The functions of governments as big as the United States
of America need deliberation. We need deliberations about function, we
need debate, we need as much consideration as possible. So we should
not rush through the process of the approval of a budget.
I think there are certain basic principles that we need to follow,
and I set forth to my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus
those principles. One is we stand for and would like to do everything
possible to facilitate a smaller, streamlined, and efficient
government.
{time} 2045
That should be the goal of all lawmakers. However, there must be
enough revenue and resources to carry out the vital functions of our
complex American society. It is absolutely necessary that we maintain
an adequate investment in human development.
The people who say that the policies of the Republican majority are
fashioned in a way to squeeze, squeeze the dollars out of the Federal
Government so that there will be no money, no funding available for
social programs, they are correct. That is the way the Republican
majority is proceeding, along with the help, of course, of a new
administration. The Republicans, of course, control all of the
apparatus of government now, and it will be more difficult than ever
before to stop the march toward the movement of resources of the
Federal Government out of the Federal Government and back to the
States, to some degree, and the lessening, in the final analysis, to
take away the safety nets, to take away the New Deal, to take away
Lyndon Johnson's society; all of that is going to be reversed if these
policies are allowed to endure in the name of making government more
efficient.
I believe in efficient government. I want every dollar saved to be
used for some good use. Over and over I have attacked the insufficient
farm subsidy program. The farm subsidy program is one of the most
inefficient programs in the civilized world. Huge amounts of money are
poured into a program that is not a safety net program, but it is still
a handout. The American people are giving money to agricultural
businesses. In addition to giving money to the businesses, we have a
farm loan, all kinds of loan programs that have existed over the last
50 years, and billions of dollars have accumulated where the farmers,
the so-called farmers, the agribusinesses have not bothered to pay back
the funds. So there are areas of waste which certainly should be looked
at very closely. There are large numbers of areas of waste. I am in
favor of an efficient, streamlined, smaller government, but not at the
expense of meeting the needs of all of the people of the United States,
especially those who are poorest and need safety net legislation.
A second general principle, a general priority that I would set
forth, I have set forth for the preparation of our alternative budget,
the alternative budget of the Congressional Black Caucus, is that
Federal assistance for education, for health care, housing, child care,
transportation, worker safety and protection, and business development
is as vital as support for homeland security and defense. Now, here I
want to make the case that inseparable, inseparable from the budget
process is our security. Considerations of our security are inseparable
from the budget process. Considerations of our prosperity, continued
vibrant economy, are inseparable from the budget process. It is the
budget, stupid. It is the budget. The budget, which is part of the
beginning of the appropriations process, will determine whether we use
our tremendous resources for the benefit of all of the American people,
whether we make a pivotal decision and turn down the dark road of more
and more to the people who already have the most and less and less for
the folks at the bottom who need the most. That is what is at stake in
this budget situation, and the fact that we must mobilize and finance a
war only aggravates the situation much more.
A third principle is that the ability of the government to provide
for the Nation's security can be effectively implemented and sustained
only if all of the vital investments in human development are assigned
priority on a continuing basis. Our security can be effectively
implemented and sustained only if all of the vital investments in human
development are assigned priority on a continuing basis. In other
words, the first thing a nation of the size of the United States
colossus, we are a colossus; nothing ever existed in the world like the
United States of America. This colossus cannot function without a lot
of educated human beings. In fact, the total population, as many as
possible, must be educated; otherwise, we are going to grind to a halt.
We cannot keep pace with all of the kinds of situations that are there
without a tremendously educated population. We are already suffering
greatly because of the fact that we have not sufficiently educated
enough people to cover all of the fronts that have been exposed as a
result of the al Qaeda attack on September 11.
One of the problems with the al Qaeda attack, and I have said it many
times, is that despite the fact that we are very advanced
technologically, we have satellite systems that cover the entire world,
they can pick up telephone conversations anywhere in the world, any
electronic mechanism can be picked up and recorded, and they did
exactly that before September 11, and many of the messages that were
picked up in Arabic were not translated in time to make the difference.
I am not saying they could have totally prevented September 11, but it
has already been admitted that some of the messages were picked up, but
suffered from delayed translation, because we did not have enough Arab
translators. We did not have enough Arab translators. Somebody in our
government in high places failed in terms of his vision and his
education to make certain that there was a comparability between the
people who were able to translate messages and the volume of the
messages coming in. Several months later, 2 or 3 months ago, a person
was fired in the FBI apparatus because she blew the whistle and said we
still do not have enough Arab translators. We still are not addressing
the problem.
Now, Arab translators are just the tip of the iceberg. We had a
problem here on Capitol Hill with that unknown person who sent out the
anthrax, sent anthrax to one of our Senators, and that office had to be
closed and the whole building shut down for 4 months. For 4 months we
had to wait for the handful of people who have expertise in how to
clean up anthrax to deal with the problem. For 4 months, for 4 months
here on Capitol Hill, because of the fact that we did not have enough
[[Page H1800]]
expertise to spread around, right here in Washington. In the Post
Office, they did not get the same amount of attention. The absence of
that attention led to the death of the two casualties of anthrax in
Washington. They were two postmen. The attention was triage, focused
here on Capitol Hill. Some of our offices had to shut down for 3 weeks.
Even now, the impact of the anthrax scare determines how fast we get
our mail. We do not get it very fast because of the fact that it is
screened.
But the absence of expertise, the absence of people who knew how to
do it was a problem. What if the anthrax fanatic had struck at 10 or 20
places at the same time? Where would we be at this point? We obviously
need a lot of people who know how to clean up anthrax, just as we need
people to know how to handle the response to chemical warfare,
biological warfare. We are talking about that, but when we look at the
cuts in education and the way education is treated, there seems to be
no understanding of the obvious. It is obvious that one cannot get the
people to do these things unless we have a pool, a pool of educated
people to draw from, bigger than the pool we have now. Because the pool
we have now to create lawyers and doctors and engineers and masses in
MBAs, businessmen, that pool will be drawn upon to create the
traditional replacements for those areas. We need more educated people
to take on all of these other specialties and to make certain that we
never, we never lose a war, we never lose a battle, and maybe never
lose a life because we did not have the expertise needed. So the
investment in human beings comes first.
Why are we proposing these budget cuts in education? Why are we not
maximizing the amount of money spent on education as part of our
mobilization for a continuing war against terrorism? A war against
terrorism is a serious war and there is a tendency to try to paint all
of us who are against the war in Iraq as passivists, people who want to
lay down their lives and let the fanatics trample over us, as people
who are not smart enough to understand the nature of the enemy.
I am against the war in Iraq, as I said before. I do not think we
should be preparing for war in Iraq because it makes the world more
dangerous for us. I am against that war, but I assure my colleagues,
like many of my colleagues who voted against giving the President the
power to go to war, my colleagues voted to give the President the power
to make war on al Qaeda and the Taliban. We applauded, we applauded the
immediate response to go after the people who perpetrated the September
11 attack.
I want to say that nowadays there is a lot of talk back and forth
among poets. I just heard, before I came to the floor, a McNeil/Lehrer
presentation where they talked for a few minutes about how poets are
getting involved in trying to stop the war on the one hand; on the
other hand, how some poets are getting involved on the other side,
criticizing the poets who want to stop the war. This poet was very much
in favor of going to Afghanistan, of challenging the Taliban, of
routing al Qaeda.
I am not automatically a knee-jerk passivist; I do not run from the
fact that there are fanatics in the world. On February 14 of last year,
February 14, 2002, I made the following statement here on the floor in
the form of a rap poem called ``Let's Roll, America.'' I am not going
to read it all, but I am going to read some of it to make it known that
when it is time to mobilize, when the enemy is real, we should go
forward.
``LET'S ROLL AMERICA!
Set the tracks of destiny straight,
Don't look back
But close the gate.
Toast the past
But change the cast.
In every language of the earth
To the country of all nations
We have proudly given birth.
At the Olympics of forever
We will win all the races;
We are Great Angels of tomorrow
With magic mongrel faces.
LET'S ROLL, AMERICA!
Be generous philanthropy geeks,
Roll up the Sierra's highest peaks.
Be fanatic democracy freaks,
All the Founders dared to seek.
Sing loud the hallelujah note,
All our races and women can vote.
AMERICA LET'S ROLL!
Stand navy out to sea,
Off we go flying to stay free,
War never leaves us thrilled
But maniacs demand to be killed.
Saddam Hussein Satan's tutored underboss
Hitler minus the crooked cross
Gleefully calculates the victim loss.
Patrons of peace permitted no breath,
Ayatollahs eat dinner with death,
bin Laden is a monster of stealth.
The spirit of Gettysburg calls
Forward to the Normandy walls;
Descendants of John Brown:
Fascists under any flag
We swear to drown.
War never leaves us thrilled
But maniacs demand to be killed.''
There is a time to go to war. Adolf Hitler presented us with that
challenge. We can never sing the praises high enough of the American
boys who died on the beaches of Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge,
fighting the Fascist enemy in Europe far away from home, but clearly, a
clear menace to the entire world. We cannot sing the praises high
enough of those who died on Iwo Jima, those who fought the Fascists of
Japan who clearly had designs on the entire world and who led the fight
by opening the conflict, by attacking us on Pearl Harbor.
So there is a time to go to war and there is a time to mobilize all
of our resources and understand that a country belongs to us all. It is
everybody's country. And when we make up the budget, remember that it
is everybody's country. The names of the people on the Vietnam Wall,
almost 58,000, I have said it before, if you look at those names, take
them down, study them, you will find that one-half of those names up
there are young men who came from the big cities of America and the
urban areas of America with very poor people, at least half came from
families that qualified for welfare. At least half came from families
that qualified for food stamps. At least a half came from families that
deserved to have Section 8 housing. Those are Americans too, and many
of the Americans in Kuwait right now are poor Americans who this
country belongs to them, too. They are daughters, they are sons, and
should not be denied the best education possible, should not be denied
decent housing. Their mothers and grandmothers should not be denied
Medicare, Medicaid by swindlers who want to save money on the backs of
the poor.
So we will fight, and there are Americans who have fighting spirits
who do not necessarily think that a knee-jerk reaction to using
military force is the answer.
{time} 2100
Let me proceed with my fourth principle in terms of basic assumptions
and principles related to the preparation of an alternative budget. The
fourth principle that I would state here is that while the taxing of
the middle-income and working families must be reduced and maintained
at the lowest possible levels, the Federal Government must nevertheless
secure the revenue it needs by upwardly adjusting the tax rate on
corporate entities and by creatively seeking larger fees from publicly
owned resources such as the spectrum above us which belongs to us, the
Internet, public lands and waterways. While the taxing of middle-income
and working families must be reduced, the idea of a tax cut should not
come from only the Republican majority. The question is who deserves
the tax cut in the structure of revenue acquisition. What is the most
just way to proceed with taxation?
This may be the defining moment in capitalism, democratic capitalism,
how we revamp our tax structure. A tax structure which is revamped
along the principles that have been established by the administration
will lead us only to chaos because it makes the rich much richer, it
widens the gap, it widens the gap between the rich and the poor in a
way which only courts disaster for the future.
So our tax structure must be reflective of the situation that exists
now. Wealth is being accumulated by very small groups of people. Wealth
is being accumulated most rapidly by corporations, corporations which
are the beneficiaries of all of the accumulated civilization that has
gone before, the knowledge that science and engineering has produced,
the knowledge that has come out of our research and laboratories. The
drug companies that provide prescription drugs are very wealthy, huge
conglomerations. But
[[Page H1801]]
they built their enterprise on the backs of research that was done in
public laboratories, research that was accumulated over the years by
scientists whose names are not known in some cases, and in other cases
whose names are known but they worked for institutes that were financed
by our government. The Institutes for Health focuses on various
diseases and research has been immediately there.
Bill Gates is probably the richest man in the world. Bill Gates is
rich because there is an Internet, Internet and computers. Both
computers and Internet were developed by the American military to the
point where they can be transformed into the private sector in ways
that allow people to make large amounts of money. The software of Bill
Gates and Microsoft, the whole culture of the cybercivilization was
created by the initiative of the American people.
The American military financed by the American people led the way;
and, therefore, if we have tax corporations that have benefited from
the efforts of the American people at a greater rate, it is only just.
Instead of taxing corporations that get rich faster and faster, the
pattern has been that corporations now bear less of the tax burden than
they did 50 years ago.
There was a time when individuals and family taxes, income taxes
comprised about 54, 55 percent of the total tax burden. Corporations
were as high as 44 percent at one point. Corporations and their share
of the burden dropped drastically down to the point where it reached as
low as 4 percent at one point. And President Clinton and his
administration began to bring it back up, I do not know, it is between
11 and 15 percent now. But that is a long ways from their fair share of
the tax burden.
If we were to increase the percentage of taxes we collect from
corporations, we could lower the taxes we collect from middle-income
families and working families; and that is a proposition that I think
our budget should go forward on now. We should reject the
administration's proposals to cut taxes at the highest levels and
provide cuts at the lowest levels. The payroll taxes for ordinary
working people is the biggest tax increase we have experienced in the
last 25 years. Percentage-wise, taxes have increased more for the
poorest people through the payroll tax than any other form of tax. Let
us relieve them of the great increase in payroll taxes. Let us relieve
the middle class which bears the brunt of the burden of taxes; let us
relieve them before we relieve the top 10 and 15 percent. Let us give
the middle class back their money. Let us give them tax credits for the
tuition for children. Let us give them child care tax credit. Let us do
things without tax policy that benefit the most people instead of the
elite few.
I am all for tax cuts, but I think that we need to drastically
revamp, repeal the President Bush tax policies and revamp that policy
to benefit the people who the need cuts most. Let us give the money to
people who will be consumers. The rich will not turn the money over and
purchase goods and services in order to revitalize the economy. They
will invest it. If they spend it on services, they will go abroad and
spend it in castles and high-class restaurants and a number of places
which will not benefit the American economy necessarily. So we should
see a tax cut for working families and a tax cut for the middle-income
families as being a stimulus for the economy.
Item five, there should be an end to the tax system as we know it and
a revamp which reduces the portion of the tax burden borne by
individuals and families to less than 50 percent of the amount of money
needed for taxation to cover our overall tax burden. Corporate entities
utilizing the collective and accumulated knowledge in institutional
support of a total society will continue to grow and prosper. Such
recipients of public response of research and development protected by
the legal system and the military might of the Nation and enriched by
the greater American consumer market, such entities can and should bear
a greater portion of the national tax burden. Corporate entities
utilizing the collective and accumulated knowledge in institutional
support of the total society, they will continue to grow and prosper.
Corporations are filthy rich. We know now from some of these
scandals, the Enron scandal, the WorldCom scandal, we know how mega-
bucks are passed among them as if they were pennies. One corporate
executive was loaned $400 million. Another corporate executive was
loaned millions of dollars, and they were forgiven by the corporation.
On and on it goes. If you read what we have gotten exposed in a few
corporations, you can see how most of them operate. Those that are
honest have a great deal of leeway of choices to make with tremendous
amounts of dollars. They can afford to pay for an American society that
is generous enough to take care of all of its children and its elderly
and people in need.
Such recipients of publicly sponsored research and development, I
cannot emphasize this too much, they are recipients of publicly
sponsored research and development, they are protected by the legal
system and the military might of the Nation.
Those who have the most, have the most to be protected. If we go to
war, we are going to war to protect those who do the most. Therefore,
it is just for them to pay more in terms of taxes.
They are enriched by the greater American consumer market. Such
entities can and should bear a greater portion of a national tax
burden. Tax cuts for the upper-income brackets should be repealed
immediately. Tax cuts for all families earning less than $50,000 per
year should be implemented immediately, commencing with a large
reduction of payroll taxes for the poorest workers. Tax cuts for the
upper-income brackets should be repealed immediately. Tax cuts for all
families earnings less than $50,000 a year should be implemented
immediately, commencing with a large reduction for payroll taxes for
the poorest workers.
Now, let me make it clear, I said I had been appointed as the
coordinator for the Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget.
These ideas here are still my ideas. They have not been all adopted by
the Congressional Black Caucus. There is still some debate about
whether we should have in our Congressional Black Caucus budget a
freeze of the tax program the way it is or whether we should propose to
have a repeal and revamping of it. And I want to note that. This is my
proposal as an individual.
Let me go to point seven, related to education and job training.
Leaving taxes which are critical, taxes are critical because they set
the parameters. They tell us how much revenue we will have for our
expenditures, and it is important that more attention be paid to tax
policy. I think that one of the failures of the American academic
community and the American citizens in general is they have allowed
taxes to be a private matter for an elite group. They have allowed
taxes to be treated with great mystery. We do not spend as much time
ever discussing taxes and how the revenue is gained as we do discussing
how the revenue should be spent. We should pay attention to both
because in the absence of rational discussion, reasonable discussions
we are having all these proposals that end up widening the gap between
the rich and the poor and doing our Nation a great disservice because
the Nation does belong to everybody. When you alienate certain groups,
you are setting up a situation which is untenable.
Let me show you how bad it is with one set of statistics that came
from the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve does a study every 3
years of consumer financing. And one of the facts that they generated
are out of their most recent study of a 3-year period, not last year,
but the 3 years before 2002, up to 2001. One of the facts that they
generated was that the median net worth, the median net worth in terms
of assets, wealth, for whites rose 17 percent in that 3-year period to
$120,900; while the median net worth for minorities fell 4.5 percent to
$17,000 for minorities. Talk about the gap between the rich and the
poor: $120,900, median net worth for whites; $17,000 is a median net
worth for minorities. That is more than just African Americans and
other folks, other minorities are included there; but the most
important factor is it did not go up. It fell from where it was before
by 4.5 percent while the median net worth for whites rose by 17
percent. That was a great time of prosperity. The end of the prosperous
1990s and into the early 2000, 2001, whites saw their median net worth
go up about 17 percent. Minorities saw their median
[[Page H1802]]
net worth go down by 4.5 percent. The gap is $120,900 versus $17,000.
That is why the Congressional Black Caucus budget needs to address a
special group with a special message. It needs to address black
leaders, our budget, the Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget,
has to address black leaders that if you think you are providing good
leadership, if you are smug and you think we are going forward because
you read these stories about the great movement forward of the black
middle class and black middle-class families, how well off they are,
then stop for a moment and consider what the hard statistics show:
$17,000 versus $120,900.
We have much work to do and only education is our salvation in the
minority community. There is no other way. A few people may hit the
lottery. Maybe some folks are discovering gold mines somewhere in the
world. But basically, the only way to accumulate wealth is to get an
education and get a decent job and start the slow process of wealth
accumulation in the family.
Let me rush now. I am running out of time. Education and job training
then becomes the key to solving the great problem of the great gap in
wealth. Our government must do everything possible to help solve that
problem by making sure there is the opportunity to learn for everybody
who wants to learn.
{time} 2115
Point 7, since the Nation's security as well as its future economic
stability and prosperity is directly dependent on the quality of
education of its citizens, the budget should greatly increase Federal
assistance for education from Head Start to title I, bilingual
education, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic
Serving Higher Education Institutions, special education, education
technology and on and on.
Since school buildings are essential for the implementation of all
school improvements, the taboo must be ended, and the Federal grants
for school construction must be provided. The President's budget is
proposing construction grants, not loans, but only for charter schools.
Let me just repeat that. There is a taboo, unfortunately many Democrats
believe in it, too, but there is a taboo against offering money for
school construction from the Federal Treasury. Somebody somewhere
decided that school construction must be a function of the State
governments and the local governments.
Now, they used to think that way about highways and roads; but we
spent billions of dollars, Federal money, on highway roads because the
modern national necessity required roads and highways that needed
Federal help. We built the railroads. The railroads were financed by
the Federal Government. The great linkup of the Pacific and the
Atlantic, most people do not understand, it was not done by private
money. It was the Federal Government that financed the railroads; and
private railroads then, of course, had a way to take advantage of that
as in the case of much government experimentation and research and
development, benefit greatly.
Here we are. The President's budget breaks the taboo by saying we
will give $175 million to charter schools for construction. If it is
okay to give construction money to charter schools, why not all
schools? Why have a taboo on public schools in general? It just so
happens that politically, for partisan political reasons, chartered
schools are favored. So we are going to have $175 million. We are not
going to give a cent to public schools for school construction.
We have some kind of program that is sponsored by two Members of the
House for loaning to school districts who do not want to borrow any
more money. So even if we pass that, it will not do much good in terms
of providing for the school construction needs we have.
Point 8, significant Federal initiatives for education reform such as
No Child Left Behind cannot be implemented effectively while local
education agencies are under assault from State and local budget cuts;
therefore, an emergency targeted revenue sharing for education programs
must be legislated.
Point 9, job training programs must be rescued from the downward
spiral of budget cuts. It must be made complementary and compatible
with our overall education efforts as well as the changing occupational
needs generated by new challenges to homeland security and global
competition.
Under Health, Human Services and Safety Nets, while the recently
released Democratic Caucus Prescription Drug Plan with a $25 premium
should be endorsed, that is, we have a plan. The Democrats have a plan
that makes sense. Democrats have a plan that is in keeping with what
other modern governments are doing for their populace. So we should
support that plan, but there are other health care needs that must be
addressed in our current budget.
Of greatest significance to the CDC are the President's proposals to
have the Federal Government abandon Medicaid; and I have talked about
that swindle, and we must stop that.
Welfare reform must be revisited and made more humane by providing
more in cash payments for children. They should also provide money to
allow any head of a welfare family to go to school for at least 2 years
of college and be able to qualify for these jobs that are available
like nurses' jobs or experts in cleaning up of anthrax.
Point 10, a coordination and calibration of the services provided to
families under title XX with the goals of assisting low-income youth
who are in the No Child Left Behind schools must be appropriately
funded.
There are many other points that I do not care to go into. I want to
conclude by saying there was a time when we had Draconian cuts proposed
for education shortly after the Republican majority took over, and I
opposed those cuts at that time by reciting a little poem called ``The
Nation Needs Your Lunch.'' They were proposing cuts in lunch programs
in order to cut and save the budget. The Nation needs your lunch. Kids
of America, there is a fiscal crunch. This regulation now needs your
lunch. Things are becoming that absurd. We are cutting out vitally
needed programs. Head Start is going to be cut. We are cutting vitally
needed health programs for children, et cetera. We are a great Nation
and we can do better than that.
I want to end with a new poem, a new rap poem which I think is very
relevant:
``Stop the war!
We need the cash!
Tank battles escalate!
Into nuclear ash.
Stop the war!
We need the cash!
Give Medicaid families
All of Rumsfeld's stash.
Throw the body bags
Into the trash.
Stop the war!
Welfare mothers
Rush to cry,
Soldiers from the ranks of
The poor will be the first to die.
Stop the war!
Dragging democracy to its knees
With friendly fire
Camouflaged by orange alert excitement
Ashcroft decrees
The Constitution's indictment.
Silent objectors will be spared,
Enemy combatants
All demonstrators have been declared.
Stop the war!
We need the cash!
Vietnam had
Profound lessons to teach;
Empires fall
When they overreach.
Stop the war!''
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