[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3741-3742]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             THE FEDERAL BUDGET AND OUR NATION'S PRIORITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, it's been 2 years, 5 months, and 23 days 
since Lehman Brothers collapsed and the Wall Street dominos began to 
fall. It's been 2\1/2\ years since Wall Street mortgage bond traders 
and their criminal management brought the world financial system to its 
knees.
  There hasn't been one person held accountable for it. Not one 
conviction. The biggest scandal in American history, and there's been 
no jail time for anyone.
  We Democrats cleaned up the mess. We saved the country from riots in 
the streets. But no one was convicted. I think a lot of voters, Tea 
Party voters included, are seething with anger about the injustice.
  Riding this wave of voter anger, 2 weeks ago this House passed one of 
the worst bills ever considered in Congress, H.R. 1, a bill the 
Republicans have called a ``budget,'' that was nothing less than an 
attack on children and working people in this country. I think all the 
people who voted for it should be ashamed.
  Budgets are moral documents. They say what a country's priorities 
are. But looking at what the Republicans passed in this House, it's 
hard to believe that the bill is what Tea Party voters really bargained 
for in the last election.
  In the papers this week, we're reading that the Tea Party freshmen 
are now going to school. They are taking classes on the Federal 
budget--``Budget 101'' is what they call it. So after they balanced the 
books of the country entirely on the backs of children and women, they 
are actually learning a thing or two about the budget. It's about time. 
They're learning the basics after the vote.
  But I don't think the Tea Party voters wanted a war on children. Tea 
Party freshmen certainly didn't run on that basis. I think the voters 
look at what this country has been through in the last few years and 
they see the terrible injustice of it. I don't think the Tea Party 
movement is about punishing women and children and poor people. I think 
they want commonsense justice.
  Mr. Speaker, only 12 percent of the country's budget is spent on 
these important programs for the needy. When you cut these programs, 
you pull American children out of Head Start, you put Americans on the 
street, you let the bridges we go to work on crumble. That doesn't 
balance the budget.
  Without any changes to current policy, the budget deficit will drop 
to $500

[[Page 3742]]

billion in 2 years. Now, that deficit will slowly rise again. This slow 
rise in the coming years is the big issue, and it's caused by two 
things: increased health care costs and a defense budget that is out of 
control.
  Mr. Speaker, we're going to fix the long-term budget deficit of this 
country by lowering health care costs and by having a sensible defense 
budget. We aren't going to do it in an orgy of intolerance and 
demonization of the middle class and working people in this Republican 
budget.
  I think the Tea Party voters want responsible spending. So do my 
constituents. The Tea Party voters want basic fairness. So do my 
constituents. Tea Party voters have been misled by the American fear 
machine into thinking that education and basic services and public 
employees is where the big savings are. That is a terrible myth and a 
terrible disservice to the public.
  I hope the Tea Party members in the House quickly learn the basic 
math of the budget. The deficit is about defense and health care 
spending, not about pushing even more children into poverty.
  Every Member of this House ought to watch the 60 Minutes segment from 
last Sunday night on children who are living in cars, living in motels, 
living in shelters because they have lost their homes. Twenty-five 
percent of American children in this country are living in poverty. 
That show looked like we were looking at Bangladesh. That's what we 
ought to be pointing to, not spending our time out here today on H.R. 
830, whacking the daylights out of another bill to prevent 
foreclosures. It is simply not what America is about.
  I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' and to go pull up on the Web 
that segment from last Sunday night and look at the faces of those 
children and realize you're creating their lives by the kind of economy 
you put together.

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