[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5865]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  DISASTROUS PRIORITIES OF 2012 BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we have heard from two Members on each side 
of the aisle who, without respect of course to any partisan 
differences, raised their voices in sadness about the loss of two of 
our brave Americans in the defense of freedom. I join their sentiments.
  Let me say this, Mr. Speaker. Those two Americans whose lives we have 
now lost showed extraordinary courage, extraordinary honesty in their 
willingness to serve. We in this body will now be called upon to show 
such courage and honesty as we address the extraordinary fiscal crisis 
that confronts us.
  Today, President Obama is speaking on a plan to confront our Nation's 
unsustainable deficits. I believe it will stand in stark contrast to 
the budget that is going to be offered by Mr. Ryan, a budget of 
disastrous priorities, in my opinion, that concentrates its plan on 
middle and working class Americans in terms of its cuts, while creating 
yet another windfall for the wealthiest in our country, at a time when 
income inequality is at a height we haven't seen since the 1920s.

                              {time}  1020

  The Republican budget ends Medicare as we know it, transforming a 
system of guaranteed health care into a system that provides seniors 
with less coverage and greater expenses year after year after year. It 
dismantles Medicaid, putting seniors' nursing home care at very 
substantial risk, and, in fact, with an inability to pay, and cutting 
off care for disabled and poor Americans.
  These entitlements must be addressed, but we must address them in a 
way that both keeps them sustainable and makes them available for 
generations to come. Somehow, however--after undermining the social 
compact of Medicare, after cutting care for the most vulnerable, after 
sending more than 30 million Americans back to the ranks of the 
uninsured--the Republican budget finds trillions of dollars to give as 
tax cuts to the wealthiest among us.
  Republicans say we are too broke to afford the promise of Medicare, 
but we are flush enough to spend trillions in tax cuts for those of us 
who are the best off. In fact, the Republican budget spends so much on 
corporate subsidies and tax breaks for the wealthy and loses so many 
savings by repealing the cost controls in the Affordable Care Act that 
it fails to balance the budget for 10 years or even 20 years.
  We have been down this so-called ``Path to Prosperity'' before. It 
leads to skyrocketing deficits because the supply-side dogma that lower 
taxes mean higher revenues has proven false over the last three 
decades. Read the facts. If Republican tax dogma made sense, then our 
debt would not have increased 200 percent under Ronald Reagan or 115 
percent under the second President Bush, but it did. In fact, we've 
seen Republican promises of prosperity proven wrong time and time again 
over the 30 years that I have served here in Congress.
  In 2007, now-Majority Leader Cantor said that the Bush tax cuts 
``have spurred spectacular economic growth.'' That was in 2007. Let me 
remind all the Members of this body, it was in December of 2007 that we 
fell into the Great Recession, the deepest recession we've had since 
Herbert Hoover. The growth was spectacular only for the top 1 percent, 
but for the rest of America, the Bush economy produced what The Wall 
Street Journal called ``the worst track record for job creation since 
the government began keeping records.'' That's what The Wall Street 
Journal said of the Bush economic program, which Cantor said would be a 
job creator.
  Throughout the Bush years, middle class incomes stayed stagnant and 
deficits soared. What did Republicans say about a budget that actually 
helped create unprecedented prosperity, the 1993 Clinton budget? Here's 
what now-Speaker Boehner said: ``How does this create any real new 
jobs? Who does this spending stimulate except maybe the liberal faculty 
at Harvard or Berkeley?'' Of course, contrary to the Speaker's 
assertion, the Clinton years saw the biggest production of jobs since I 
have been serving in Congress of 22.7 million new jobs--in the private 
sector, almost 21 million jobs as opposed to the private sector loss of 
jobs under President Bush, about 7,000 loss of jobs per month, versus 
216,000 new jobs every month on average under Bill Clinton.
  Those words represent the same flawed priorities we see in this new 
Republican budget: tax breaks for the wealthy, a failure to invest in 
the future, and a heavier burden on working families.
  Our country deserves better, Mr. Speaker. Let's reform our 
entitlement programs with a scalpel, not an axe. Let's look for savings 
in every part of the budget, defense included. Let's close tax 
loopholes, but let's also use the Tax Code to reduce the deficit and 
ensure that all of us, even the most privileged, pay their fair share.
  Republicans have taken us down this primrose path before, Mr. 
Speaker. It has demonstrably led to higher debt, stagnation for working 
Americans, and, most recently, an economic implosion. We must not 
choose that dead end again.

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