[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 9945]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          ARE YOU BETTER OFF?

  (Ms. PELOSI asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to ask the question that 
President-to-be Ronald Reagan made famous in the debate in 1980: ``Are 
you better off today than you were 4 years ago?''
  The answer, of course, for most Americans is ``no.'' Under President 
Bush and the Republican Congress, most Americans have suffered. If you 
are a taxpayer, you are not better off. We went from a budget that was 
in balance in 1999, the deficit was zero, and on a path to a $5.6 
trillion surplus to one now that is half a trillion dollars in debt 
this year alone.
  If you are a senior, you are not better off because prescription drug 
costs for seniors have skyrocketed 44 percent in the last 4 years. And 
what do they get but a hoax of a prescription drug bill.
  If you are a student, you are not better off because the Bush 
administration has underfunded the No Child Left Behind Act by $27 
billion since 2001 and wants to cut funding for higher education by 
$1.3 billion while college tuition has increased by 28 percent.
  If you are a worker, you are not better off because 2.2 million jobs 
have been lost and the unemployment rate is 5.6 percent, one-third 
higher than the 4.2 percent when President Bush took office. And 
workers are not better off because wages have failed to keep pace with 
inflation. Wages rose a mere nickel between March and April.
  If you are a consumer, you are not better off because gas prices have 
increased from $1.26 to a record $2.01 a gallon since President Bush 
took office.
  In the next few days, we will be offering further lists of grievances 
of the reckless policies of the Bush administration and the Republican 
Congress. Clearly, we are not better off since President Bush took 
office.

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