[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 17 (Wednesday, February 11, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           BUSH ADMINISTRATION'S GROWING CREDIBILITY PROBLEM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, last week the President of the United 
States introduced a budget with a $520 billion deficit. If we look 
across the spectrum, not only does this budget have a fiscal deficit of 
historic highs of $521 billion, the budget has a credibility deficit, 
blaming 9/11 and corporate scandals for the creation of this deficit. 
In fact, the Bush administration is continually facing a growing 
credibility problem not just in fiscal terms but also in policy terms 
at home and also overseas. America's word must be respected abroad as 
well as here, but the administration's word is coming under question.
  If we take it from issue to issue, whether it is on the deficit, and 
we are running a record-high deficit, and the President wants to claim 
to be a fiscally responsible President, but not once in any of his 
budgets has he introduced a budget that is either balanced or gets to a 
road to balance. Not once.
  In November, this House debated a $400 billion prescription drug 
bill, and yet we learn that all along the administration knew it cost 
$550 billion. That is for a program that we debated and understood to 
be $400 billion, and not the $400 billion, not even the $500 billion, 
is paid for, driving the American taxpayer as well as our seniors 
further into debt.
  The other day they talked about the importance of manufacturing jobs, 
yet they cut the manufacturing extension program which has helped 
small- and medium-sized manufacturers compete in the world market and 
add jobs.
  The other day, a senior adviser to the President for economic policy 
announced that outsourcing of jobs was a good thing for the economy.
  Mr. Speaker, the outsourcing of American jobs are a good thing for 
the Indian economy, not the American economy. Any administration who 
has a top economic adviser who believes outsourcing of jobs is a good 
thing is an administration with a record that has lost three million 
jobs in 3 years.
  Whether it is on the budget that is out of whack with our values and 
our principles and our priorities, and as Goldman Sachs and the 
international monetary funds have announced, it is not even a credible 
budget. There is not a cent or direction in how we are going to reduce 
this deficit.
  This President, from day one when he came into office, had a surplus 
north of $100 billion. In his last budget before his reelection, he 
submits a deficit of $521 billion.
  In the area of jobs, three million Americans since he has been 
President have lost their jobs. They fake an interest in offering a 
manufacturing extension program and then call for its election or cuts 
by two-thirds.
  Take the funding of police. They have advocated the importance of 
helping police and firefighters, talked about funding them, and in the 
President's budget a billion dollars was cut from the police and over 
$500 million from helping our firefighters.
  If we take it from area to area, from section to section, this 
administration says one thing and then does another. The budget is a 
blueprint and a document representing the values, principles and 
priorities of the administration as well as for the United States. I 
cannot think of a worse example, to have a policy in which we are 
presented a budget with a $521 billion deficit, record numbers for the 
country. They are numbers that in my view put us at grave economic 
risk. We are now beholden to the Chinese and Japanese to continue to 
buy our securities where, God forbid, at any moment if we need their 
support they hold our economic security and determine our economic 
future, which puts us in a terribly vulnerable position.
  Across the board on any number of subjects, we can watch how this 
administration continues both here at home to have its word questioned 
and also overseas has its word questioned. When a President of the 
United States has a credibility gap like that, it is not only 
endangering in my view his administration but our own economic security 
as Americans. We can see from the value of the dollar and the way it is 
falling people's judgment about the importance of our word and 
credibility.
  On the issue of weapons of mass destruction in the recent report, 
that, too, is another example, and a glaring example, where the word of 
this administration now will be questioned rather than heeded.
  In closing, as written in Time magazine, ``Any of those challenges 
may have been manageable. The problem was that each news cycle brought 
a new question about the President's judgment and candor, which 
Democrats lost no time exploiting. Fiscal conservatives had been 
howling for months about a budget that seemed totally out of control.''

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