[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 16, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H945-H946]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           REPUBLICAN BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my Republican 
colleagues to stop their attack on women. Family planning is between 
women, their doctors, and their family. Republicans have no business 
being in that discussion.
  The anti-choice, anti-women Republican majority in the House has made 
eliminating critical health services for women a top priority. 
Apparently, protection begins at conception and ends at birth.
  Republicans want to gut all reproductive health care in the country 
and are trying to shut down Planned Parenthood. What an amazingly 
immoral thing to do. It is utterly disingenuous of the Republicans to 
go after Planned Parenthood in their inhuman crusade. Radical 
Republicans are catering to their most extreme base at the expense of 
150 million women in this country, and they should be ashamed. But they 
won't.
  The Republicans are also at war with the poor, again, leaving 
millions of low-income women and women of color with no access to basic 
health care.
  Let's not forget, the American people sent us here to solve problems 
that face everyone. Unfortunately, the Republican leadership is laser-
focused not on jobs or the economy or the national security, but on 
attacking women and children in this bill, waging a culture war to get 
campaign contributions from the extremists in this country.
  In their rush to appease religious conservatives and undermine the 
health care law, Republicans have gone from pro-life to pro-government 
intrusion in the extreme. Republican government is about silencing you 
as you talk to your doctor.
  Republicans love to silence Americans and anyone else they can get to 
on their moral crusade. Only a real Republican could love a law that 
says it has a gag rule.
  Let me be clear. The so-called pro-life agenda set by the Republicans 
is the most unprecedented form of government intervention on 
reproductive rights in decades.
  I remember the seventies and the sixties. The Republicans are 
defining what constitutes forcible rape and penalizing private 
businesses that choose comprehensive insurance coverage. If that's not 
government intervention, I don't know what is.
  Women are the victims in several major bills and amendments that the 
Republican leadership is pushing at a mind-boggling speed. These 
radical anti-choice bills all seek to fundamentally erode the right of 
all women to health care. More importantly, they don't reflect the will 
of the American people.
  A recent national survey conducted by the Lombardo Consulting Group 
found that more than 60 percent of the voters support family planning. 
How is attacking women helping the economy or creating jobs or helping 
our national security?
  We have been in the House for a month now and we have seen lots of 
talks about how we're going to slice the deficit, but not one single 
discussion, serious discussion, about how to get there. It is 
irresponsible to allow these narrowly driven ideological debates about 
women's health to dominate the House calendar when we have a budget to 
work out and almost 15 million unemployed.
  I urge my colleagues to abandon this vicious attack on women and to 
focus on issues the American people actually sent us here to solve: 
Looking for jobs. And I urge my Republican colleagues to get out of the 
doctor's office and leave women and families and doctors alone.
  Mr. Speaker, I submit for inclusion in the Congressional Record an 
article by Joel Connelly of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that talks 
about the duplicitous and dangerous agenda set by the House Republicans 
to severely restrict the rights of women, children, and low-income 
families.

                [From www.seattlepi.com, Feb. 13, 2011]

          House GOP Agenda: Curtailing Abortion, Cutting Kids

                           (By Joel Connelly)

       The new ``pro-life'' Republican majority in the U.S. House 
     of Representatives seems dedicated to a curious proposition: 
     The protection of life begins at conception, and ends at 
     birth.
       The leadership is pushing a Protect Life Act that would 
     prohibit any subsidies for abortion in any component of the 
     2010 Affordable Health Care act. It is moving to end any U.S. 
     government support for abortion providers--anywhere.
       ``We need to protect human life from the unborn to the 
     elderly,'' Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Penn., chairman of the Health 
     Subcommittee of the powerful House Energy and Commerce 
     Committee, said recently. Pitts has headed the Values Action 
     Team, a House caucus concerned with pro-life and pro-family 
     issues.
       When it comes to spending on children and health and the 
     elderly, however, House Republicans' new budget is The Pitts.
       The budget axe is about to fall on, to use Ronald Reagan's 
     line stating his opposition to abortion, ``those who have 
     already been born.''
       Women, Infants and Children was the one new, bipartisan 
     social program passed by Congress and signed into law by 
     President Reagan. (Then-Rep. Mike Lowry of Seattle was a lead 
     sponsor.) House GOP budget writers have targeted it for a 
     $758 million cut.
       WIC provides federal money to States for supplemental 
     foods, health care referrals and nutrition education for low 
     income women, and to infants and kids under 5 who are at 
     nutritional risk.

[[Page H946]]

       The budget axe in Congress' lower chamber will also fall--
     to the tune of $1.3 billion in cuts--on Community Health 
     Centers. The program supports community health, migrant 
     health centers, health care for the homeless, and primary 
     care programs in public housing.
       Maternal and Child Health Block Grants to States have been 
     targeted for a $210 million reduction. The program helps 
     train providers and support services for children with 
     special health needs, screening of newborns, injury and lead 
     poisoning prevention.
       The cuts continue through stages of life, and programs that 
     sustain and enhance life.
       AmeriCorps, the Clinton-era program in which young people 
     do public service work in exchange for college tuition, is 
     marked for elimination. Job training is targeted for a $2 
     billion cut.
       LIHEAP, the program that provides winter heating assistance 
     to low-income families, is to be hit with a $400 million 
     reduction--despite the growing need for it as America goes 
     through the Great Recession.
       The National Institutes for Health would see a $1 billion 
     reduction. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 
     would see a $755 million reduction, or 12 percent.
       Nor do cuts stop at the water's edge. A total of $544 
     million would be axed from international food aid grants to 
     such organizations as World Vision and Catholic Relief 
     Services.
       The House members championing such cuts are the very people 
     who profess to be advocates for the unborn and defenders of 
     life. Yet, their policies hit at society's poor and 
     vulnerable, and at the ability to pursue the American dream.
       How could anyone, in good conscience, proclaim himself/
     herself ``pro-life'' while axing a child nutrition program? 
     Check that. The late Sen. Jesse Helms, R-North Carolina, 
     managed it for 30 years.
       The new majority seems proud of its handiwork: Rookie Tea 
     Party lawmakers have forced even deeper cuts on the House 
     Republican leadership.
       ``Remember, this is historic: The level of cuts here have 
     not taken place in Congress since World War II,'' House 
     Majority Leader Eric Cantor boasted Friday.
       But we should remember another moment in history: Just 
     before Christmas, Congress and the White House extended tax 
     cuts to the wealthiest two percent of Americans.
       Jim Wallis, editor of the Christian publication Sojourners, 
     has suggested posing a question to the ``peoples' house'' of 
     Congress. It's a variation on the familiar What-Would-Jesus-
     Do slogan used by some Christian believers.
       What would Jesus cut?

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