[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 31, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H4134]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PRESIDENT OBAMA'S BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PERLMUTTER. Madam Speaker, I was just listening to my good friend 
from North Carolina, and she and I are friends. We serve on committees 
together. We agree on a lot of things, but we couldn't disagree more on 
how we got into this place and what it is going to take to get out.
  We had an administration and a Republican Congress that said America, 
it's okay to give tax cuts to the wealthiest people in the country and 
have wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and go into debt.
  Well, it turned our country from a very prosperous Nation into one 
that was borrowing money from all across the globe, something that 
can't go on forever. And it finally came home to roost about 6 or 7 
months ago when the banks had trouble, the automakers had trouble, 
everybody saw our economy just crunch like we hadn't seen it in 
generations. That's what we are faced with today, ladies and gentlemen. 
That's what we are faced with today, Madam Speaker.
  So what are we going to do about it? Well, in the past month we 
passed the stimulus bill which is designed to do at least five things 
to get our country back on track.
  First, it rebuilds our infrastructure, our roads, bridges and 
waterways. It builds a new energy grid so we can get power throughout 
our Nation in a cheaper and more efficient way.
  Second, it creates a new energy economy. If we want to keep sending 
tons and tons of money across the waters to the Middle East, then we 
should do nothing, keep the status quo. That's what our friends on the 
Republican side of the aisle would like us to do, just vote no, we like 
the status quo. But I don't like the status quo. I don't like sending 
our hard-earned dollars to the Middle East year after year after year, 
and we are creating a new energy economy within the stimulus bill.
  We are helping our States which have found themselves to have lost 
lots of revenue over the last 6 months, so they can continue to employ 
teachers and firefighters and policemen. So we are helping our States 
continue to provide the services that we so desperately need right now.
  There are tax cuts within the stimulus bill and within the budget for 
almost every American, but not the wealthiest 5 percent, so that each 
one of us gets a little bit of a break, but we are not giving it to the 
top people who have had the break for the last 8 years.
  The last thing it does is it provides assistance to people who have 
been laid off and need assistance with unemployment or with their COBRA 
health insurance so they don't just run into a wall, to get us through 
this difficult period.
  President Obama inherited a budget deficit that was $1.3 trillion. It 
is a lot of money. It is more than any of us can comprehend being in 
the red. When President Clinton left office, we had a budget surplus. 
We were paying off the debt, and we got just the opposite when 
President Bush left office.
  We are doing three things in particular to get us out of this 
predicament. First is to provide a new energy economy, similar to the 
stimulus, but the budget moves this forward another 4 years.
  Second, it deals with health care which is something that everybody 
has talked about for years but really little has been done. And for 
each company out there, for each individual, we have seen our health 
care costs going up. We have to come at it a whole different way, and 
that is what the budget proposes.
  The third thing is to make sure that our education system, our 
kindergarten through 12th grade, and then our higher education system 
is the best in the world so we continue to be able to compete globally, 
so that business comes here and stays here and doesn't go overseas like 
it has been doing.
  It is a very ambitious agenda, but it is one that is going to take us 
into the 21st century, something we didn't do during the last eight 
years of a Republican Administration. We just lived on borrowed time 
and borrowed money. And now it is time to move forward. The budget that 
has been proposed reflects those particular values. At the same time, 
it maintains for middle America, for 95 percent of Americans, smaller 
taxes. But it is a difficult predicament we are in now. This President 
has provided to the Congress a budget that is going to get us out of 
this ditch, and it is going to take the work of each and every one of 
us to move forward.

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