[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5769-5770]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      REPUBLICAN PATH TO THE PAST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, the Republican budget for 
fiscal year 2012 that the House will take up later this week is not a 
Path to Prosperity. Rather, it is more accurately a Path to the Past.
  Just like President Bush's ill-fated attempt to privatize Social 
Security, the Path to the Past eviscerates Medicare, forcing retirees 
to bear the brunt of cost increases and severely jeopardizing their 
access to health care, replacing today's guaranteed access with a 
limited voucher system.
  Today, thanks to Medicare, every one of America's senior citizens has 
access to health care coverage. Before Medicare was enacted in 1965, 
roughly half of all seniors suffered without health insurance. The Path 
to the Past would send American seniors back to the times of scrambling 
to find coverage while always worrying how they will be able to afford 
rising health care costs on fixed incomes.
  The Republican Path to the Past brings back the doughnut hole in 
Medicare part D prescription drug coverage. Under the doughnut hole, 
many seniors have been forced to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket 
for prescription medication because they weren't covered by part D.
  I was proud to fix that inequity and eliminate the doughnut hole 
during the previous Congress. Unfortunately, the Republican Path to the 
Past brings it back once again, requiring many seniors to pay thousands 
of dollars extra for their prescription drugs. That's a past Americans 
don't want.
  The Republican Path to the Past destroys Medicaid, replacing it with 
a vastly limited monetary grant to the States, forcing them to either 
reduce benefits to lower-income families or to reduce the number of 
eligible families or both. Currently, 34 million children receive 
health care through Medicaid.
  From 1997 to 2009, the percentage of children without health 
insurance

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dropped from 13.9 percent to 8.2 percent, largely because of Medicaid. 
The Republican Path to the Past risks the future of millions of 
America's children by risking that health care coverage. That's a past 
America does not want.
  The Path to the Past incredulously blames rising college tuition on 
efforts to make Pell Grants more accessible to kids and would return 
the Nation to a system where only the wealthy can afford college. 
Contrary to what the Republican budget states, college tuition costs 
have been rising long before the expansion of Pell Grants.
  In fact, from 2002 to 2007, tuition costs rose 31 percent more than 
the rate of inflation, the worst 5-year increase in college costs in 
over 30 years.
  In response, last year we reformed the student loan program, expanded 
the Pell Grant program, and allowed hundreds of thousands of students 
the ability to make higher education more affordable. The Republican 
Path to the Past returns the Nation to the years of rising tuition 
without any relief. That's a past America does not want.
  The Republican Path to the Past ignores the economic recovery under 
way and indiscriminately slashes investments in ways that Goldman Sachs 
said will lower economic growth by 2 percent and increase unemployment 
by 1 percent. During the height of the Great Recession, for several 
months, 700,000 Americans lost their jobs.
  According to Mark Zandi, an economist with Moody's Analytics and an 
adviser to Senator McCain's Presidential campaign, those policies would 
cost American workers another 700,000 jobs. The Economic Policy 
Institute projected a loss of 800,000 jobs, while the Center for 
American Progress said it will cost 900,000 jobs. That's a past America 
does not want to go back to.
  The Republican budget proposal, the Path to the Past, returns us to 
the law of the jungle and the survival of the fittest, throwing the 
young, the elderly, the sick, and the disadvantaged on their own fates.
  That's not an America I believe in.

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