[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 29 (Wednesday, March 8, 2006)]
[House]
[Page H759]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              PRESIDENT'S GAP BETWEEN RHETORIC AND REALITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, just 35 days ago I attended the 
President's State of the Union address with other Members of Congress 
right here in this Chamber. And that night I was very much pleased to 
hear the President talk about the importance of maintaining America's 
competitive edge in an era of increasing global economic competition.
  This is an urgent issue facing our Nation and one on which I think 
there should be strong bipartisan support. In fact, many of us in this 
House have been working for some time on what we call an ``innovation 
agenda'' to ensure that America stays number one when it comes to 
international economic competition. Indeed, last fall House Democrats 
unveiled a blueprint for an innovation agenda.
  So I was pleased with many of my colleagues to hear the President 
join this effort in the State of the Union address. He said this was 
going to be a priority. In fact, that night he told the American 
people, ``Tonight I announce an American competitiveness initiative to 
encourage innovation throughout our economy and give our Nation's 
children a firm grounding in math and science.''
  He went on to talk about the importance of the No Child Left Behind 
Initiative and proposed an increase in training teachers for math and 
sciences.
  Now, a few days after the State of the Union address, the President 
sent his budget to Congress. Now, we all know that the budget is what 
is a true reflection of the President's real priorities. That is where 
the American people have a chance to see whether the President's words 
at the State of the Union address are backed up by action. That is his 
opportunity to show that he means what he says. And I must confess, I 
was very disappointed with the President's budget and I believe the 
American people will be disappointed, too, because his rhetoric that 
night in the State of the Union in this Chamber was not matched by the 
reality of his budget.
  He may correctly want to invest more in math and science, but if you 
look closely at his budget, $115 million of the $380 million investment 
is simply taken from other important education initiatives. It is a 
shell game. Out of one pocket, into another. And what is worse, if you 
look at the President's proposal for No Child Left Behind, which he 
talked about in his State of the Union address, this year it is $15 
billion dollars short of what this House and this Senate and the 
Congress and the President said they would provide. And that is 
cumulatively $40 billion short of what had been pledged.
  Now, what about higher education? Our students in this global 
economic competition have to be able to compete in a knowledge-based 
economy. Yet students and families are seeing across this country 
increasing tuition rates, making it harder and harder for them to pay 
for the tuition and making college out of reach for more and more 
Americans.
  So what did the President and the Congress do? The day after the 
State of the Union address, this House passed a budget reconciliation 
bill that cut $12 billion on student aid, the biggest rate on student 
aid in the history of this country, passed by the Republican Congress. 
And with the stroke of a pen, the President signed that into law and 
made college more difficult for many millions of Americans to reach.
  Now, the President also told us in the State of the Union address 
that to maintain our competitive edge we have to invest in scientific 
research, and he was right. But while he increased, rightly, his 
investment in the physical sciences, if you look at the medical 
research budget, it is flat. And in fact, if you look at 18 of the 19 
institutes at the National Institutes of Health, they are cut. This 
violates sort of the first principle that doctors have in medicine: 
First, do no harm. Those cuts will harm our ability to maintain our 
competitive edge in the medical research area. We need to get serious.
  I am proud to have joined with my colleague, Mr. Inslee, to introduce 
a number of new provisions with respect to maintaining competitiveness, 
as well as others.
  The President also told us what many of us already knew: that we are 
addicted to foreign oil. If you look actually at his proposals in this 
area, they are rather anemic. In fact, his budget cut our investment in 
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. And Americans may remember 
the spectacle just a few weeks ago when the President wanted to go out 
and visit the National Renewable Energy Laboratory only to discover 
before the great photo-op that his budget had cut funding for that, and 
38 employees were laid off. So they had to scramble around to rehire 
those employees so the President could get his sound bite and his 
photo-op.
  We have got to put aside the sound bites and the photo-ops. And 
instead of having the sound bite policy, we need a very sound energy 
policy. And again, many of us have worked on legislation in this area.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the message is clear: You have to not just look 
at what people say but what people do. I urge the American people to 
recognize the gap between rhetoric and reality in the President's 
budget and see that there are alternatives that many of us have 
proposed.

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