[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 56 (Wednesday, April 13, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H1642-H1643]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                          CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Aderholt). The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Israel) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ISRAEL. Mr. Speaker, this morning I intend to comment on middle 
class budgets. But, before that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to just very 
briefly reflect on a trip I just took to visit with our troops in the 
Middle East, in Iraq and elsewhere.
  I have been to Iraq about 10 times. I think one of the fundamental 
responsibilities we have, as Members of Congress on both sides of the 
aisle, is not just to talk about supporting our troops, but to go into 
the theater, visit with them, and learn firsthand the challenges they 
face.
  Every time I visit with our troops, when I come back, I think the 
same thing: that we are so blessed to live in a country that gives us 
the right to agree with the decision to put people in harm's way, we 
have the right to disagree with that decision, and we have the right to 
remain silent, but no American has the right to forget even for a day 
the sacrifices that those men and women are making for us every single 
day.
  We owe them our support and our awareness for the work that they do 
and, more importantly, supporting their families who are here and 
supporting our troops when they return as veterans.
  Mr. Speaker, Friday, April 15, is a day of two deadlines. That is the 
deadline most Americans know by which they must pay their Federal 
income taxes. Everybody understands that deadline, and Americans don't 
have a choice but to comply with that deadline.
  The other deadline is that that is the day by which Congress must 
pass a budget, and it is up to the Republican majority to produce that 
budget and bring that budget to the floor for a vote.
  Unfortunately, the Republican majority will miss that deadline and 
fail the American people in our fundamental responsibility to earn our 
pay by passing budgets.
  That is what we are put here to do: to debate priorities and pass 
budgets; yet, this deadline will be missed. Failing to pass a budget by 
the deadline is a fundamental failure to the American people.
  I will say, however, that, in this case, a missed budget may be a 
little better than the bad budget that Republicans have originally 
proposed. It is a budget that fundamentally fails the middle class.
  It is a budget, as proposed, that gets rid of the Medicare guarantee. 
It is a budget, as proposed, that slashes $6.5 trillion in 
fundamentally important priorities to the middle class in making sure 
that their kids are well educated, making sure that we are rebuilding 
America with infrastructure and trying to reduce traffic jams, 
rebuilding our bridges and our tunnels, and modernizing our airports. 
It is a budget that undermines the middle class. It is a budget that 
fails the middle class.
  Now, I understand the need for us to reduce spending, and I have 
supported significant reductions in spending in my time in Congress.
  But what this budget does is it takes away from the middle class in 
order to further enrich the most powerful: the special interests.
  That is why people are so angry out there. They understand that 
Washington has to do more with less, but not give more to people who 
already have the most.
  That is what the Republican budget does. That is the architecture of 
spending tax dollars that must be paid by April 15.
  You take away from the middle class and you give more to people who 
are doing pretty well already, people who are doing so well that they 
can hire all sorts of friends to do their work here in Washington and 
maybe even contribute to some super-PACs. I think that is wrong.
  People are angry because not only are our priorities wrong, but they 
see very little evidence of a Congress, under Republican leadership in 
the Senate and the House, that is doing its job.
  They are angry because the Republican Senate won't even debate and 
vote on a Supreme Court nomination. You can vote for it. You can vote 
against it. They won't even vote on that nomination.
  That is a failure to do the job that they are paid to do. They are 
angry because the majority here in the House of Representatives won't 
do their job and pass a budget.
  As I said before, Mr. Speaker, maybe no budget is better than a bad 
budget, but both represent failure for the American people.
  The Pew Research Center did a study just several weeks ago that said 
that, for the first time since the Depression, to be in the middle 
class in America is to be in the minority. About 49 percent of 
Americans are in the middle class. The rest are either richer or 
poorer.
  An economy grows best when the middle class is strongest. We need to

[[Page H1643]]

fulfill our responsibility to that middle class by doing what they will 
pay us to do on April 15: just do our jobs and pass a budget that 
invests in their growth, in their families, in their children, and, as 
I opened, invests in our troops, our national security, and makes sure 
that every veteran in America is taken care of. Those are the 
priorities we have in our budgets.

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