[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 528-529]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            BRING OUR BUDGET IN BALANCE WITH OUR PRIORITIES

  (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, in today's number reporting a deficit $500 
billion, a historic number, it goes to prove that we cannot fight three 
wars with three tax cuts, having now produced a record deficit in the 
economy.
  And what we need now is a balanced budget that is in balance with our 
priorities. Not all government spending is

[[Page 529]]

good, and not all tax cuts lead to the same economic benefit. We need a 
strategy and an agenda that brings our budget into balance with our 
priorities, where we can make sure that Americans can afford the 
education and the health care for their children that they need as well 
as make sure that we have the security and the investments in our 
defense that we need. And as we lay out our agenda and understand where 
we are as a country and the priorities, I think that today's deficit 
proves that while the economy is supposedly growing, the deficit should 
be going down, not going up. And the reason it is going up is because 
we neither have a strategy nor the priorities that are correct for this 
country and for the future of our country. So we must once again 
dedicate ourselves to the principle of bringing the budget into 
balance, in balance with our priorities.

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