[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 23115]
[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 Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, Catholics have a sacrament, the sacrament of 
penance, which they call reconciliation. It is a time when you revisit 
your own life to take a close look at how your daily actions square 
with what you believe. As a Catholic, looking at this budget, I cannot 
square the moral values of our country, opportunity, equality and 
justice, with the practical impact that this budget proposal will have 
on the lives of working American families.
  This year, thanks to President Bush's tax-cutting program, the U.S. 
Government will deliver up to $106 billion to the multiple bank 
accounts of some of the wealthiest Americans. This government program 
to help wealthy Americans spend more money now forces a false crunch on 
our resources, a $50 billion cut that Republicans believe should come 
from Medicaid, food stamps, and student loans. Who will feel the impact 
of these cuts? Well, almost 60 percent of all people in nursing homes 
who are on Medicaid, and one-third of all babies who are born on 
Medicaid, and 8 million Americans with disabilities who depend on 
Medicaid, and 36 million Americans who have to worry about going 
hungry.
  How do we, as a Congress, reconcile the fact that these cuts will 
disproportionately affect low-income Americans, the elderly, and the 
poor? The answer is we should not reconcile ourselves to such an 
action, not for 1 minute, not for a nanosecond. If we are going to 
dramatically change for the worse the lives of millions of children and 
families and senior citizens across the country, it had better be 
because we had to, not because we chose to. And there is no doubt that 
Republicans have now chosen to rob the poor to maintain and create new 
tax breaks for the rich.
  We are not simply robbing the poor of resources. The proposed cuts 
are robbing the poor of opportunity. The reconciliation budget targets 
programs that work to bridge the gap between rich and poor, Medicaid, 
food stamps, and student loans, that strive to even the playing field 
for all American families.
  Eight weeks ago, across the United States, Americans saw the faces of 
other Americans staring up at them from television screens scratching 
out desperate signs on rooftops. Help us, the signs said. Grandmothers, 
brothers, nieces, nephews, newborns, the faces of families who could be 
our families, neighbors who could be our neighbors, but desperate, 
alone, and calling out to the world to see. Across the country, 
Americans answered with one voice: we are better than this. This is 
wrong. This is immoral. This must not be allowed to continue. We must 
take care of our own. It is our responsibility. It is our duty. It is 
who we are as a people.
  As a country, we saw that 100,000 people were trapped in New Orleans 
because they did not have automobiles to escape the flood waters. We 
found that 50 percent of all children in Louisiana live in poverty. In 
response to this national revelation, Republicans have revisited our 
national budget and made a decision to cut programs from the poorest of 
the poor while protecting a new tax cut giveaway to the richest of the 
rich. Instead of limiting these tax cuts to millionaires, the 
Republicans have decided to rebuild New Orleans on the backs of the 
poorest people from the rest of the country.
  This is a moral question, not a budget matter. The Republicans are 
building the high levees around their threatened tax cuts, while 
letting the flood swamp the programs that matter for the rest of 
Americans. This is what the debate is really all about. It is about our 
values as a Nation and how they are reflected in how we govern, how 
America should treat its neighbors, our fellow Americans, who by an 
accident of birth came into this world unable to see or who were born 
into a family without the means to put food on the table, or who had 
the misfortune to develop Alzheimer's. Should we let them starve? 
Should we tell their children they will never go to college because 
their parents cannot pay the tuition? Shall we turn them away from the 
hospitals because they cannot afford the care and do not have the 
insurance? Or should we as a country decide that in this land of plenty 
no one should go without basic human dignity?
  As a Catholic, I was brought up to believe that character is judged 
by how we treat the least amongst us. This budget does not pass that 
test, and my hope is that tomorrow we as a Congress will rise up to 
defeat it.
  Poverty is on the rise in our country, 37 million Americans are now 
in poverty.
  A family of two in poverty--a single mother with her child--is living 
on $1,069 a month.
  About 14 million Americans are living on half of poverty. A single 
mother with her child living at half of poverty is trying to survive on 
$535 a month.
  That is two people living on $123.37 a week.
  And each day in America 2,385 more babies are born into poverty.
  The Republicans will say that society has little obligation to help 
the poor because they fail to take personal responsibility for their 
lives.
  The United States has highest GDP in the world. We are first in 
military technology; first in military exports; first in Gross Domestic 
Product; first in the number of millionaires and billionaires; and 
first in health technology. But we rank 12th in living standards among 
our poorest one-fifth; 13th in the gap between rich and poor; 14th in 
efforts to lift children out of poverty; 18th in the percent of 
children in poverty; and 37th in the health status of our citizens.
  We should be working to close these gaps and ensure that all 
Americans have a fair chance at life and are treated with basic human 
dignity.
  Instead, this reconciliation plan will take away food, health care, 
education and the ability to live in dignity in old age from people who 
have no other options. This budget will proliferate existing 
inequalities.
  I simply cannot reconcile this budget with my values because this 
budget does not reflect who we are as a nation and what we believe our 
responsibility is to other Americans.
  We will be judged by how we take care of the least of our people.
  We will be judged by our decision to turn our backs on those 
Americans who were driven to cry out HELP--We are your neighbors, your 
grandmothers, your children.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this shortsighted, fiscally. 
irresponsible and immoral budget.

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