[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[Senate]
[Page 24296]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   SENATE BUDGET RECONCILIATION BILL

  Mr. CORZINE. Mr. President, I rise today to express my serious 
concern about and opposition to the Senate budget reconciliation 
package.
  The bill we are considering today contains harmful program cuts that 
would fall disproportionately on the most vulnerable in our society. 
And though its sponsors claim it is fiscally responsible, it is part of 
a budget reconciliation package that adds to the deficit rather than 
reducing it.
  This legislation cuts funding for health care provided through the 
Medicaid Program, which provides health insurance to poor children, 
pregnant women, and elderly. My colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle argue that we must cut waste and fraud in the Medicaid Program. I 
agree with that. But, what I don't agree with is taking money out of 
this critical safety net program--without which millions of Americans 
would be uninsured--and using that money to pay for tax cuts for people 
with high incomes. This amounts to a direct transfer of benefits that 
just doesn't make any sense.
  In addition, much of the reduction in Medicaid spending comes not 
from reducing costs but from shifting them to States. The Federal 
Government can make its books look a little prettier, but one way or 
the other, taxpayers are still paying the same bill. Some of the cuts 
also come from reducing important services. For example, under this 
bill, my home State of New Jersey would lose critical Federal resources 
that it relies on to provide health insurance to parents of children 
enrolled in the State Children's Health Insurance Program, SCHIP. And, 
the State would be prohibited from using any SCHIP funding to expand 
coverage to other adult populations. In fact, my State has estimated 
that it will lose $44.6 million in Federal SCHIP funding. As usual, the 
most vulnerable in our society will feel the most pain from these cuts, 
while reaping the least benefit from the associated tax breaks.
  The reconciliation bill also includes authorization for oil drilling 
in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which I strongly oppose. It is 
simply unacceptable that the majority is using the protection of 
deficit-reduction procedural rules to enact controversial, 
environmentally damaging policy. In fact, the language opening the 
coastal plain does not even afford ANWR the same environmental 
protections afforded to every other wildlife refuge or public land that 
is currently open to oil and gas development.
  The cost to our environment is too great to bear and will not improve 
our energy independence. Drilling in ANWR, by nearly all credible 
predictions, is expected to yield only marginal amounts of oil that 
will have little or no effect to reduce our Nation's dependence of 
foreign oil.
  Adding insult to injury, not one cent of the savings achieved from 
the cuts in this legislation will be going towards reducing the 
deficit. Instead, they will be used to pay for barely half the cost of 
the package of tax breaks that will be considered next in the 
reconciliation process. So it would be wrong to pat ourselves on the 
back and misrepresent today's legislation as ``fiscally responsible'' 
because that only tells part of the story.
  Our Nation faces serious challenges right now, with the war in Iraq, 
the war on terror, and the need to rebuild the gulf coast region 
devastated by Hurricane Katrina. We must keep our economy strong by 
keeping our workforce competitive and investing in our human and 
physical capital. Now is not the time to be cutting important benefits 
for those in need.
  If we intend to seriously confront these issues, we need to stop with 
the irresponsible fiscal policies that have driven us deep into 
deficit. We need to stop with the wasteful tax cut giveaways. And we 
need to stop forcing the most vulnerable members of our society to pay 
for the costs of our irresponsibility.
  This legislation before us today accomplishes none of these goals, 
and so I cannot support it. Mr. President, we can do better than this.

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