[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1093]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        THE VALUE OF INVESTMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Honda) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HONDA. Mr. Speaker, I would like to start out my comments with a 
quote. ``See, I ran for office to solve problems, not to pass them on 
to future Presidents and future generations.'' President Bush at a 
fund-raiser in Oregon, August 21, 2003.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe our national budget should reflect a 
community's values and priorities. It should reflect the needs of the 
American people, including good jobs, safe community, quality 
education, and access to affordable health care.
  In my home district in Silicon Valley, we understand the value of 
investment. This means crafting budgets based on right choices. Do we 
fund a trillion dollar tax cut or do we provide after-school programs 
for our children? Do we give away billions to HMOs or do we help 
seniors afford their prescription drugs? Do we increase tax breaks for 
the businesses that ship jobs overseas, or do we work to recover the 
2.6 million manufacturing jobs lost in the past 3 years?
  Unfortunately, the budget submitted by President Bush fails to fund 
priorities important to middle-class Americans. President Bush's budget 
has a different set of priorities: budget-busting tax cuts, fiscal 
irresponsibility, overpayments to HMOs, and reduced funding for 
important domestic programs.
  President Bush's budget lays out $1 trillion for tax cuts but 
provides $9.4 billion less for education than was promised in the No 
Child Left Behind Act. In California alone, this will result in $897 
million less for school districts through the title I programs and $105 
million less for children with disabilities through the IDEA program. 
President Bush is eager to make his tax cut permanent and even make new 
ones. But he cannot seem to deliver the funds promised when he signed 
the No Child Left Behind Act nearly 3 years ago.
  President Bush's budget includes $46 billion in overpayment for HMOs 
as a part of the Republican Medicare plan but it does nothing to lower 
the price of senior citizens' prescription medication.
  President Bush has claimed for 3 years that his economic program 
would create jobs. But in that time the U.S. has lost nearly 3 million 
jobs. The President asserted in the State of the Union address that 
additional tax cuts would create jobs, but the numbers do not support 
this claim. This is not even a true budget because it will miss the 
costs of ongoing military operations in Iraq.
  The budget also avoids long-term reform of the alternative minimum 
tax, even though the AMT will soon force millions of middle-class 
families to pay more taxes. And this is in direct contrast to the 
original intent of AMT. A recent estimate by the Congressional Budget 
Office put the full price tag of AMT reform at over $500 billion, a 
cost not factored in by the President's budget.
  If this budget reflects President Bush's priorities, then it is clear 
where his priorities lie. President Bush has chosen the interest of an 
elite few over the needs of the many. I urge my colleagues to align 
their priorities with those of the American people and oppose the 
budget proposed by President Bush. That budget reminds me of Swiss 
cheese. It is full of holes.

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