[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 54 (Thursday, April 3, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E659-E660]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN BUDGET: TAKING FROM THE POOR TO GIVE TO THE RICH

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                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, April 3, 2003

  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my 
colleagues the following column authored by Bob Herbert that appeared 
in today's New York Times. ``Mugging the Needy'' accurately details the 
serious dangers posed by the budget plan recently passed by the House: 
that in providing $1.4 trillion in tax cuts to the wealthy, House 
Republicans are slashing billions of dollars in funding that aids low-
income Americans. These cuts will affect Medicaid recipients, children 
in foster care, the national school lunch program, as well as veterans' 
benefits and the ability of students to afford their higher education.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican budget is not just a political document 
that details their misguided vision for America. It is far more serious 
than even that, for it fails to stimulate the economy and create jobs, 
it saddles future generations with enormous deficits, and it robs needy 
Americans--both young and old--of critical services. The Congress 
should reject this budget.

                           Mugging the Needy

                            (By Bob Herbert)

       I had wanted today's column to be about the events in 
     Tulia, Tex., where a criminal justice atrocity is at long 
     last beginning to be corrected.
       (For those who don't know, prosecutors are moving to 
     overturn the convictions of everyone seized in an outlandish 
     drug sting conducted by a single wacky undercover officer.)
       But there is another issue crying out for immediate 
     attention. With the eyes of most Americans focused on the 
     war, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress are 
     getting close to agreeing on a set of budget policies that 
     will take an awful toll on the poor, the young, the elderly, 
     the disabled and others in need of assistance and support 
     from their government.
       The budget passed by the House is particularly gruesome. It 
     mugs the poor and the helpless while giving unstintingly to 
     the rich. This blueprint for domestic disaster has even 
     moderate Republicans running for cover.
       The House plan offers the well-to-do $1.4 trillion in tax 
     cuts, while demanding billions of dollars in cuts from 
     programs that provide food stamps, school lunches, health 
     care for the poor and the disabled, temporary assistance to 
     needy families--even veterans' benefits and student loans.
       An analysis of the House budget by the Center on Budget and 
     Policy Priorities found that its proposed cuts in child 
     nutrition programs threaten to eliminate school lunches for 
     2.4 million low-income children.
       Under the House plan, Congress would be required to cut 
     $265 billion from entitlement programs over 10 years. About 
     $165 billion would come from programs that assist low-income 
     Americans.
       This assault on society's weakest elements has been almost 
     totally camouflaged by the war, which has an iron grip on the 
     nation's attention.
       The House budget does not dictate the specific cuts that 
     Congress would be required to make. In its analysis, the 
     center assumed (as did the House Budget Committee) that the 
     various entitlement programs would be cut by roughly the same 
     percentages. If one program were to be cut by a somewhat 
     smaller percentage, another would have to be cut more.
       The analysis found that in the year in which the budget 
     sliced deepest:
       ``The cut in Medicaid, if achieved entirely by reducing the 
     number of children covered, would lead to the elimination of 
     health coverage for 13.6 million children.''

[[Page E660]]

       ``The cut in foster care and adoption programs, if achieved 
     by reducing the number of children eligible for foster care 
     assistance payments, would lead to the elimination of 
     benefits for 65,000 abused and neglected children.''
       ``The cut in the food stamp program, if achieved by 
     lowering the maximum benefit, would lead to a reduction in 
     the average benefit from an already lean 91 cents per meal to 
     84 cents.''
       When's the last time one of the plutocrats in Congress 
     waded through a meal that cost 84 cents?
       The Senate budget is not as egregious. It calls for a total 
     of about $900 billion in tax cuts, and there is no demand for 
     cuts in entitlement programs. But it is not a reasonable 
     budget. In fact, there's something obscene about a 
     millionaires' club like the Senate proposing close to a 
     trillion dollars in tax cuts for the rich while the country 
     is already cutting social programs, running up huge budget 
     deficits and fighting a war in the Middle East.
       At least in the House budget the first--if not the worst--
     of the cuts are in plain view. In the Senate plan the 
     inevitable pain of the Bush budget policies remains 
     concealed.
       ``There is a significant human toll in the Senate budget, 
     but it's in the future,'' said Robert Greenstein, the 
     center's executive director. ``What I mean is that given the 
     deficits we're already in, you can't keep doing tax cuts like 
     this--you can't keep cutting your revenue base--without it 
     inevitably leading to sharp budget cuts.''
       House and Senate conferees are now trying to resolve the 
     differences in the two budget proposals. They will do all 
     they can to minimize the public relations hit that is bound 
     to come when you're handing trainloads of money to the rich 
     while taking food off the tables of the poor. So you can 
     expect some dismantling of the House proposal.
       But no matter what they do, the day of reckoning is not far 
     off. The budget cuts are coming. In voodoo economics, the 
     transfer of wealth is from the poor and the working classes 
     to the rich. It may not be pretty, but it's the law.

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