[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 29 (Wednesday, February 12, 2020)]
[House]
[Page H1051]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              TRUMP'S VISION FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE IS BLEAK

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the Trump administration released 
its budget proposal for fiscal year 2021. It was titled ``A Budget for 
America's Future,'' but its vision for that future is bleak.
  Its vision of the future is the true American carnage that President 
Trump described in his inaugural address. It envisions an America that 
is less than it can or should be.
  It envisions an America where working families are left to struggle 
while the wealthy continue to prosper. Rather than expanding economic 
opportunity to all, it would force families to choose between food and 
other essentials by cutting nutrition assistance by $182 billion so 
more children and more people would go hungry in America, the richest 
nation on the face of the Earth.
  It would completely eliminate the Community Development Block Grant, 
which helps local communities keep millions out of poverty.
  Rather than ensuring healthcare is accessible to all, this budget 
cuts Medicaid by $900 billion and slashes Medicare by half a trillion 
dollars, even though the President promised he would never touch the 
program's funding from that podium just a few days ago.
  It would also cut research into lifesaving cures at the National 
Institutes of Health by $3.3 billion--penny-wise, pound-foolish. It 
cuts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by more than half a 
billion dollars, at a moment when we need to protect our people against 
the coronavirus and other public health threats.
  Mr. Speaker, a true budget for America's future wouldn't increase the 
cost of attending college, as this budget does, by cutting student loan 
programs by $170 billion. The education of our young people is our 
greatest investment in a successful future.
  This budget discourages those who want to serve their communities by 
eliminating the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. It would slash 
the Department of Education's budget by $5.6 billion this year alone, 
while eliminating after-school programs for kids. Kids would be less 
safe, less educated.
  Ignoring another of his pledges, this time on infrastructure, 
President Trump's budget proposes cutting the Department of 
Transportation by 13 percent this year and reducing funding for the 
Army Corps of Engineers by 22 percent, both agencies that deal with 
infrastructure.
  It proposes a future devoid of innovation, as well, eliminating 
several programs that fund and promote research and innovation to 
support advanced manufacturing, new energy technologies, and 
entrepreneurship. On all of those, the President's budget sounds the 
trumpet of retreat.
  This budget promotes a future that is less secure by reducing funding 
for public diplomacy and foreign aid. For 3 years now, and in our 
fourth year, our public diplomacy has been put at risk.
  Moreover, this budget extends the 2017 tax cuts for the wealthy, 
while once again asserting the debunked and discredited theory that the 
tax cuts pay for themselves. They didn't do it in 1981; they didn't do 
it in 2001 and 2003; and they haven't done it now.
  The evidence is clear: The President's tax cuts for the wealthy did 
not provide the trickle-down benefits that he promised or give our 
economy the kind of boost he said that it would. Yet, the 
administration is back again, promoting the notion that if we give tax 
cuts for the wealthy one more try, they will produce growth well above 
what every mainstream economist projects, period.

  This budget is not a serious proposal, nor is it fiscally 
sustainable. Budgets are about priorities. The priorities in this 
budget, giving tax cuts to the wealthy while cutting the programs that 
help working Americans get ahead, are the wrong priorities for our 
Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of talk about who is going to offer a 
budget. The President has offered a budget, and we have offered a 
budget. And that budget, Mr. Speaker, was incorporated in the 
appropriations bills signed by the President of the United States.
  We now have an agreement on what the level of discretionary 
expenditures will be. So I want to tell my friends not only on the 
Republican side of the aisle, but I want to tell everybody in America 
that we have a budget. We have set forth our priorities, and those 
priorities were in the bills that we passed last year and the President 
signed.
  The marginal increase in those is very, very small this year. That 
was the deal that was made between Secretary Mnuchin and Speaker 
Pelosi. We will pass our appropriations bills consistent with those 
priorities that we have already articulated at the numbers agreed upon, 
unlike the President of the United States who sent us a budget that 
completely abandoned the agreement we made in July, just 8 months ago, 
7 months ago.
  What is the point of making an agreement if it is looked at as a 
ceiling? It is like going and bargaining on a house and saying, ``I 
will pay you $100,000,'' and then coming to the settlement table, and 
saying, ``Well, I am really going to pay you $90,000. That $100,000 was 
just a ceiling.''
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to pass through this House and send to the 
Senate appropriations bills that will represent the priorities of the 
American people, and that budget will be for the people. I am hopeful 
that, one more time, we can adopt those priorities, have them signed by 
the President, and have no drama about shutting down government, as we 
did not this past year. That is our responsibility. That is our duty to 
the American people.

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