[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 25339]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO UNDERCUT AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, just a few minutes ago, many 
heard my colleagues join in a full discussion on the very important 
debate that we will engage in this coming week regarding the Budget 
Reconciliation Act. Frankly, I wish we could go back to the days of old 
of this institution when you could have a thorough debate. The Founding 
Fathers established this august body, some 13 colonies; and when they 
engaged in a debate, it was just that: it was a thorough analysis. It 
was a long, extended analysis of the issue at hand. I imagine that 
might have been the setting in the Constitutional Convention when we 
established this Nation and we premised it on democracy.
  One day of debate certainly does not equal the moment of importance 
to be voting on what we call a budget reconciliation bill when so many 
lives will be impacted.
  Just a few minutes ago, I hung up from a call with my local 
authorities who were speaking to me about the enormous mounting need 
for resources in the gulf region. We know how generous Americans have 
been, but it is important to note that States like Texas, Alabama, and 
Louisiana are still trying to work with the many Hurricane Katrina 
survivors, our neighbors on the east coast and Florida, impacted by 
Wilma, and now our neighbors to the north impacted by this terrible 
tornado in Indiana and Kentucky. It says that we must be empathetic and 
sympathetic and our budget reconciliation has to address the idea of 
being willing to give people, not a hand out, but a hand up.

                              {time}  1515

  Well, Mr. Speaker I do not see how we can possibly do that under the 
heavy burden of between $70 billion and $200 billion in tax cuts. It 
just does not work, the sacrifice that our soldiers are making in the 
week of the veterans celebration, commemoration, so many veterans who 
have come home from Iraq who are now in need of hospital care and 
counseling and jobs. As we honor them this Friday, what sense does it 
make to be able to say to these veterans who may ultimately either want 
to be able to send their young people, their children, to school 
because so many of them are Reservists, that we would in this day, one 
day, raid student aid?
  The single largest cut to student aid will occur if this budget 
passes on Thursday, $14 billion, $14.33 billion cut from student aid, 
$7.8 billion in new charges on student aid for parent-borrowers. Those 
are the same parents who are seeing their salaries go down, who are 
seeing a consolidation of their companies and, therefore, layoffs, who 
are seeing a lack of increase in their salaries, who have not seen an 
increase in the minimum wage for years.
  We cannot afford this kind of raid on the Treasury so that students 
who are only seeking an opportunity for a hand up and not a handout are 
going to be the victims of this budget reconciliation.
  Might I also suggest that we have better priorities than to give tax 
cuts to the 1 percent richest in America. We have better priorities 
than to provide for a $200 billion tax cut that takes place in 2006. We 
can document that tax cuts do not energize the economy. We can document 
that it is jobs, that it is the investment in the building of jobs.
  It will be the building of homes in the gulf region, creating 
opportunities for American workers. It will be, in fact, the investment 
in students that will be the creation of jobs, not an average tax cut 
through 2010 without sunsets, this multibillion dollar tax cut that we 
can see and the income groups that will get it, the top 1% income 
earners in America. The amount of the tax cut here shows more than 
$87,000, going to the richest Americans. This is the kind of difficulty 
that we will face in this debate, and frankly, I believe that we can 
wait on those tax cuts.
  What else we can wait on, Mr. Speaker, is the raid on Medicaid, 
because Medicaid will experience $12 billion in cuts over 5 years, 
$47.7 billion in cuts in Medicaid over 10 years. We believe, as 
Democrats, that there should be no cuts.
  So the message today is, let us do this in a bipartisan manner. This 
is no time to undercut America with cuts that will not save America. It 
will only hurt America. And, frankly, in the many constituencies that I 
have engaged in across America, not just Texas, we have nursing homes 
that are going to suffer, senior citizens that are going to suffer.
  What about the 5-year look-back on a senior citizen to be able to be 
eligible for Medicaid and that particular senior citizen is destitute 
right now? We are going to force them to look back 5 years where there 
may have been a death, that their partner, their husband or their wife, 
may have died, and their income may have dropped drastically and it 
does not show that.
  Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I think we can do better. Something is not 
right and we can do better. Let us defeat the budget reconciliation. 
Let us work on behalf of the American people and the American young 
people.

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