[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 14 (Wednesday, February 8, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H199]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    PRESIDENT'S BUDGET HURTS PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, this administration will go down as the most 
antilife in modern history. The President's budget is a moral document. 
It should promote life. Yet the President's new budget released Monday 
makes the wrong choices. It irresponsibly hurts future generations and 
saddles them with gigantic debt. It hurts them, it hurts people. It is 
irresponsible.
  Let us start with health care. The President's budget will hurt 
people. It is a health care budget that is antilife. The Bush budget 
carves out over $36 billion through 2011 from Medicare. Despite the 
fact that people cannot afford prescription drugs and costs are 
exploding, why is he forcing across-the-board cuts to future Medicare 
payments?
  The chaos surrounding the new prescription drug benefit has already 
caused undue anxiety and lack of medication to thousands of our 
citizens too sick and too ill to fight back in lines at drugstores 
around our country. Seniors 80 years old with Parkinson's disease are 
being forced to go into drugstores confused without the help that they 
need. The President's budget is antilife.
  At the same time, the President's new budget slashes our lead 
agencies to fight disease. They shortchange veterans' health care. 
Apparently, the Bush administration's idea of honoring service to our 
country is to make millions of veterans pay huge increases for health 
care costs that they have earned.

                              {time}  1945

  The President's budget proposal includes legislation that would raise 
veterans' premiums to over 100 percent on prescription drugs. 
Additionally, the Bush administration has shortchanged the Department 
of Veterans Affairs, leaving it short of needed funds to take care of 
the expected influx of tens of thousands of injured and disabled 
veterans returning from Afghanistan and the Iraq war. His veterans 
budget is anti-life.
  The Bush budget offers words only and no substance to thrust our 
Nation into a new era of energy independence. For hard-hit consumers, 
he has offered nothing. His policies, however, allow the huge oil 
giants to rack up even more profits. Take ExxonMobil that just racked 
up the largest profit of any corporation in U.S. history, $36 billion 
in profits in just 1 year. Their profits in 1 year were larger than the 
entire budget of the U.S. Department of Energy. It is interesting to 
note that Exxon's windfall lifted the combined profits of the 2005 oil 
giants to $63 billion, three times the size of the entire Department of 
Energy. His energy budget is anti-life.
  There are people freezing and getting flu around this country because 
they have to set their thermostats down. His budget is anti-life. He 
refuses to see those people.
  If the President was serious about helping people, he would be 
committed to making our Nation energy independent. He would have made 
new fuels a centerpiece of his State of the Union address. Instead, his 
budget eliminates all funding for new fuels to help expand the 
production of ethanol and biodiesel. His budget cuts renewable energy 
loans, bioenergy support value-added to help small companies get a 
start up. By almost $100 million he shortchanges them.
  And yet if we look at oil company profits, they have allowed CEOs in 
those firms to double their salaries and drive up their political 
contributions by a staggering $450 million in the past 6 years. They 
know how to cash in. But what a great injustice to the vast majority of 
people. Their heating bills are going up. They are paying for gasoline. 
They do not have any sweetheart deals in this town to cut their taxes.
  If you look at the weatherization program, the President is reducing 
funds there. If you look at the winter heating assistance program, the 
people applying have reached a 12-year high, but his budget is over $2 
billion short, $2 billion short of what is needed just to take care of 
the people that we needed to take care of last year. But the oil 
companies have a $63 billion profit, just the top three companies. What 
is wrong with this picture?
  He has cut first responders. We know he has not gotten help to people 
affected by Katrina and Rita in the gulf.
  And this says nothing about how his budget is anti-life against the 
youth of our country and children by causing tuition to go up at all of 
our schools. The Bush budget fails the moral test. It fails the ill. It 
fails our youth. It fails the future. It is the most anti-life budget 
in American history.

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