[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 54 (Tuesday, March 31, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H4138-H4139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  (Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

[[Page H4139]]

  Mr. PAYNE. Mr. Speaker, after leading our Nation to the brink of 
financial disaster through their reckless economic policies, our 
Republican colleagues now have the audacity to launch attacks on the 
budget proposed by President Obama and the Democratic majority in 
Congress.
  After taking the healthy budget surplus left by the Clinton 
administration and turning it into the most disastrous deficit in 
history, Republicans are actually attacking a budget proposal which 
cuts the deficit by nearly two-thirds by the year 2013, cuts taxes for 
middle-income families by $1.5 trillion, creates jobs with investment 
and reforms in health care, clean energy, education, and reduces 
nondefense discretionary spending to its lowest level as a percentage 
of the economy in nearly half a century.
  By contrast, the Republicans have put forth a so-called budget which, 
unbelievably, contains no numbers. None. What their budget does is 
propose more of the same failed policies that got our country into this 
deep financial economic crisis.

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