[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24027-24028]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




              URGING CONGRESS TO MAKE WISE BUDGET CHOICES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, since 2000 this Congress has racked up more 
than $3 trillion in additional new debt, and by the year 2008, we will 
cross the $4 trillion mark. Why? It is trying to do something that no 
other Congress and no other President has ever tried in American 
history. It is trying to fight two wars with four tax cuts. This 
Congress has served as an ATM machine to the special interests, 
showering them with billions of tax breaks and tax shelters and 
handouts of the hard-working tax dollars of the American people.
  Yet suddenly our Republican friends are finding themselves as fiscal 
hawks. In fact, right now the House is working to slash more than $50 
billion from education, health care, environmental programs, all that 
are important investments for the American people. Why? So they can do 
another $70 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest 1 percent in 
America.
  At the same time that these so-called fiscal conservatives are 
complaining about the deficit, they are trying to add a total of 
another $100 billion in tax cuts to the special interests.
  I ask my colleagues, are these the right choices for the American 
people? We are now paying $445 billion to date for the war in Iraq, $20 
billion to rebuild Iraq. We just have a spanking new dam in Mosul, 
Iraq, with all of the levees, yet we cut the Corps of Engineers here in 
the United States, which affected the levee in New Orleans.
  In fact, we built 110 primary health care centers in Iraq, vaccinated 
3.2 million children in Iraq. This Congress cut $10 billion from 
Medicaid, cutting Medicare programs, cutting back community health care 
clinics in the United States and training of doctors.
  In Iraq, we have rehabilitated 2,700 schools, trained 36,000 
secondary teachers. What do they do in America? They cut $806 million 
from our schools and education programs, $6 billion from our Pell 
grants and other higher education programs.
  We funded 3,100 community development projects in Iraq; yet the 
community development project investment fund here in the United 
States, cut by $250 million.
  We are investing in Iraq and trying to provide Iraq a future that we 
are denying the American people. I have no problem. We made a decision 
on Iraq. We have an obligation, but we do not have an obligation to cut 
back on America's future. There is no choice in the sense of American 
children and their future playing second fiddle to those who are in 
Iraq.
  If you go through American history, every President in the middle of 
a war has thought about how do I make sure America is stronger when we 
come back from that war and it ends? Abraham Lincoln, in the middle of 
the Civil War, thought of the land grant college systems. President 
Roosevelt during the middle of World War II thought of the GI bill and 
passed it 11 months before the war came to an end. President

[[Page 24028]]

Eisenhower, on the heels of Korea, funded the Interstate Highway System 
that built America and made it what it is today. President Kennedy, 
during the struggles of the Cold War and Vietnam, envisioned a man on 
the moon.
  What does this President and what does this Congress offer America 
during the middle of the war on terrorism? Cuts in education, cuts in 
health care, cuts in our Corps of Engineers, cuts in our development 
and investments here in America.
  Every President, every Congress thought about America after the war, 
thought about how we built a brighter future. They thought about not 
only what we did overseas, but how we were going to do it here at home 
and make sure that every American had a brighter future. Only this 
President and this Congress, because of their careless and reckless 
policy of trying to fight two wars and fund it with two cuts that has 
added $4 trillion to the Nation's budget.
  Today we are thinking about cutting $806 million from our education 
investments, cutting $6 billion from our investments in higher 
education, eliminating investments in America's Amtrak system, cutting 
back our investments in the Corps of Engineers' program which invests 
in all of our infrastructure projects like what happened in New 
Orleans. No other President and no other Congress has thought of a 
future in which America is less after the war than it was before the 
war.
  What is going on now? Families are facing an energy crisis where 
energy is now running about $3 a gallon. Home heating costs are going 
to go up 50 percent this winter. Inflation has increased at its fastest 
rate in 15 years. Hundreds of thousands of fellow citizens have lost 
everything in the gulf coast. Health care costs are running up at close 
to 15 percent, nearly four times inflation. Educational costs and 
higher educational costs are running at about a 10 percent annualized 
increase over inflation.
  These are difficult times, and these times are when people look to 
their fellow citizens and their community and their government. What is 
this Congress doing? Rather than building up America, this Congress is 
cutting back on the investments we need to make America a stronger 
place tomorrow.
  We can do better than we are doing today. We can make a change in the 
right choices for America. We should find ways to balance the budget 
without doing it on the backs of our children.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time for Congress to change its tune. It is time 
for Congress to begin to represent the people's interests and the 
people's House rather than the special interests.

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