[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 27708]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                               THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pascrell) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PASCRELL. Mr. Speaker, over the past few weeks, the Republican 
leadership has taken their year of budgetary gimmicks to a new level, 
and I want to address that.
  Not only have they declared the Census an emergency, something we 
have been doing through the centuries, not only have they delayed 
funding for critical medical research at the National Institutes of 
Health, they tried to create a 13th month in the year and put off 
payments that lower-income working families receive under the Earned 
Income Tax Credit.
  Not only have they put on the floor an appropriation bill that has 
abandoned our commitment to reduce class size in our schools, a 
commitment which we started in the 1999 budget to eliminate 
immunization for 300 kids and gutted funding to hire teachers for 
disadvantaged students, not only have they been saying that they are 
the great protectors of Social Security and Social Security surpluses, 
while their own Congress Budget Office numbers which they have demanded 
the House use say the exact opposite, that all would have been bad 
enough, now they are telling us they are doing the responsible thing.
  They have decided to hold up a penny and say, of course we can cut 
one penny out of every dollar we spend. One percent they say. That is 
just wasted money. They have abandoned apparently their idea of an $800 
billion tax cut, so-called tax cut.
  Why? It did not resonate with the people of America. The reply of the 
leadership has been, Most people don't pay taxes. That's why people 
aren't supporting this tax cut.
  They have got to be kidding me. Most people in America do pay taxes. 
Most people in America of adult age work if they are not retired. But 
let us keep it elementary. Let us keep it very simple. Let us get back 
to the penny.
  We all know that on the face of this penny is the face of Abraham 
Lincoln, our great role model. It appears here. As we listen to the 
rhetoric of the leadership, I would like this House to consider some 
other faces that are reflected here in this penny, the faces of those 
who represent the real story of about what this penny means.
  Consider the face of Bob Corsa from Clifton, New Jersey. Bob is one 
of our Nation's veterans. Cutting that penny means that he and his 
fellow veterans will lose nearly $200 million in funding for 
desperately needed medical care. This little penny I hold in my hands 
that their side has held up night after night, I am holding it up 
tonight. These are America's heroes. Yet, the Republican leadership 
calls their medical care wasteful spending. What is one penny? What is 
one percent?
  How about the face of the young 3-year-old in the town I grew up in 
and still live in, Paterson, New Jersey, who may be one of 5,000 
children denied an opportunity to attend Head Start programs. He or she 
would be so denied because this penny actually means 39 million less 
dollars for Head Start in their proposal. The other side calls these 
investments in our future wasteful spending.
  We should also remember the face of that college student who will not 
have the opportunity to receive work study assistance or the family who 
will be forced to live another decade near a toxic waste site because 
funding for the cleanup of that site has been slashed.
  The other side is saying to those citizens, it is just a penny. It is 
just wasteful spending we are cutting. Their argument is the easy way 
out. It is an across-the-board cut that fails those we were sent here 
to advocate for, the voiceless. And we continue this process.

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