[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 154 (Friday, November 18, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2413]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT OF 2005

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                           HON. BRIAN HIGGINS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, November 17, 2005

  Mr. HIGGINS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to express my opposition to and 
concern about the devastating cuts to essential services passed in this 
House today as part of the budget reconciliation package.
  The cuts this body adopted today will have disastrous impacts on the 
western New York communities I represent. The unnecessary cuts to 
health, education and children's programs will be particularly hard 
felt in and among the working families of Erie and Chautauqua Counties.
  The ranks of the uninsured continue to swell in this country, and 
more and more Americans are concerned that someday they may find 
themselves without health insurance and unable to afford needed care. 
In fact, over 45 million Americans are currently without health 
insurance. Medicaid represents this government's promise to provide 
health care to Americans who can least afford it. Over 4 million New 
Yorkers are enrolled in this quite literally life-saving program, 
including 1.8 million children. I voted against the bill today because 
it will cut Medicaid spending by more than $11 billion. That's an $11 
billion cut from caring for children suffering from leukemia, from 
pregnant mothers struggling to survive and from mentally disabled men 
and women trying to make a place for themselves in our communities; we 
should not make our budget cuts on their backs. Instead, we should be 
increasing health care access to more Americans, not fewer. If Medicaid 
is expanding, it's because fewer Americans can afford health insurance, 
let's not deny them the only access to care available to them.
  I am also concerned that this legislation cuts over $14 billion from 
successful Federal student loan programs--the largest cuts ever to 
student aid. This is the wrong cut at the wrong time, because college 
costs continue to skyrocket with no end in sight. In fact tuition at 4-
year public colleges has increased 46 percent since 2001. Children from 
working families in Erie and Chautauqua Counties, and over 470,000 
students across the State, depend on these loans to afford college and 
they depend on college as the key to economic opportunity. These cuts 
will needlessly deny that opportunity to young people in western New 
York who want to go to Medaille, Canisius, the University of Buffalo, 
my alma mater, Buffalo State, and others.
  The reconciliation package is also an abdication of our 
responsibility to children. The bill cuts child support enforcement by 
almost $5 billion, abandoning single parents and rolling back the 
progress our society has made in this field. Children are not 
responsible for divorce or for parents abandoning their families. Let's 
not turn back the clock and make them carry that responsibility. The 
bill cuts $577 million from foster care programs. And perhaps most 
troubling, it cuts $796 million from food stamps, which represent our 
promise that amid this country's great wealth, no American child, 
whether in the cold winters of Erie County or the sun baked mountains 
of Arizona, should starve.
  What is perhaps most objectionable about this process is the 
doubletalk used to sell these cuts. While we have been told that these 
spending cuts are necessary to reduce the deficit, they do nothing of 
the sort. Instead, the $50 billion in spending cuts are coupled with 
$106 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. That means that 
all of these cuts, all of them, will be used to pay for irresponsible 
tax cuts that we can't afford and that do not put money back in the 
pockets of my hardworking constituents in Buffalo; not one dime will 
actually go to reduce the deficit.
  In fact, this reconciliation process will increase, not decrease, the 
deficit. I agree that it is well past time for Congress to put our 
fiscal house in order, but to call this package a deficit reduction 
measure at best makes no sense, and at worst is patently dishonest. We 
need to do better by the American people and I pledge to do better for 
the people of Western New York. Frankly, they do not deserve this bad 
budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I object to the cuts this House adopted today, and I 
object to the slight of hand used to sell them.

                          ____________________