[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6622]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        GAS PRICES AND MEDICARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from 
New York (Mrs. McCarthy) for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. McCARTHY of New York. Mr. Speaker, before I begin to share my 
thoughts this morning about how the Republican budget is a blow to our 
American ideas and priorities, I would be remiss if I didn't use this 
opportunity to praise our men and women in uniform, our President, and 
his advisers for the extraordinary courage and capability they all 
demonstrated in the mission that put an end to Osama bin Laden on 
Sunday.
  Being from New York, we know firsthand of the consequences of this 
horrible, horrible action that Osama bin Laden took on September 11, 
2001. I can't tell you how many families in my congressional district 
were hurt, lost their loved ones, children becoming orphans in ways 
that it is going to take them years, if forever, to recover.
  That is why Sunday was so important. It was a moment in history, our 
history. We told the world as Americans, we're going to fight not only 
for each other but we're going to fight for our rights, our ideals that 
are at the core of our very being.
  I would hope that, in the aftermath of Sunday, we would be able to 
come together in the way that we did after September 11. We need to 
find more ways to come together. We need to work together for the good 
of our constituents, for the good of our country. But that doesn't mean 
that we don't have extraordinary differences of opinion, and that's 
what I'm here to talk about today. I'm here to talk about the budget 
that the House Republican majority just passed--and I voted against--on 
April 15. I believe that that budget is a document that lays out the 
wrong priorities.
  Trust me when I say that I'm as anxious as anyone about our Nation's 
fiscal policies, but we also need to make sure that, in the process, we 
do not kill thousands of jobs and hurt millions of American families. A 
budget, as far as I'm concerned, is a moral document. It should be a 
declaration of our country's priorities. But the Republican budget does 
anything but that. It hurts our most vulnerable citizens while giving 
tax breaks to our oil companies.
  I spent over 33 years as a nurse before I came to Congress, and let 
me tell you, the one thing that strikes me every week when I come down 
to Washington is the disconnect that I see between a lot of the 
politicians here and the people who are back home struggling in their 
districts.
  The budget that was passed by Republicans is absolutely out of touch 
with the people back in my district. How in the world can you undermine 
the health and well-being of our seniors at the same time that you 
continue to give the richest companies on the planet tax breaks? That's 
not what the people in my district want. The seniors, and all the 
people in my district, want health care. They feel like that as they 
get older, they want the peace of mind to know that they have access to 
the greatest health care system in the world. They've paid for that 
right. As they worked throughout their life, they paid into the 
Medicare system. They believe that they have the right to Medicare, and 
I agree with them.
  Yet the Republican budget fundamentally undermines that right. The 
Republican budget ends Medicare as we know it. It eliminates guaranteed 
coverage for our seniors and turns the program into a voucher program. 
This is a drastic, drastic concept.
  Let's not try to pretty things up here. Republicans are essentially 
pushing seniors into the private marketplace where they will pay more 
and get less. As health care keeps rising with inflation, these 
vouchers will not keep pace. As the Congressional Budget Office has 
said, Medicare beneficiaries would bear a much larger share of their 
health care costs. The result would be absolutely awful for our 
seniors. We are going to see our parents and our sisters and our 
brothers faced with awful choices: Are they going to pay higher 
premiums? Are they going to have to get health plans that cover less? 
Or, even worse, will they drop out and have no health care at all?
  Cutting our health care system isn't the only way that families are 
being hurt. The high price of gas is hurting families across this 
country and certainly in New York. Across the country and definitely on 
Long Island, the price of gas has climbed way above $4. Yet in what is 
an absolutely mind-boggling position, Republicans in Congress still 
refuse to allow a vote to repeal the billions of dollars in taxpayer 
money that oil companies are getting. Exxon, for instance, just took in 
$10.7 billion during the first 3 months of the year alone. That's a 69 
percent increase over the same time frame from last year. Other 
companies have enjoyed the same increases, all while continuing to 
receive $4 billion annually in subsidies.
  Mr. Speaker, we're Americans. We can disagree, but we're supposed to 
be fighting for this country. We need to make sure we protect our 
seniors. We need to make sure we have jobs. We need to make sure that 
we keep this country safe.
  God bless America.
  The oil companies aren't struggling companies in need of a helping 
hand. They're companies with huge profits receiving billions of dollars 
in wasteful government spending.
  I'm not a person who is against drilling.
  I believe that we need a comprehensive energy policy that takes 
advantage of clean energy, but also takes advantage of the natural 
resources that we've been blessed with.
  I also believe that we need to be aggressive in taking on the oil 
speculators who are profiting from the ballooning price of oil.
  But what I find particularly abhorrent is that, at a time where 
Republicans are claiming that our country's fiscal problems are an 
excuse for us to undermine the needs of our seniors, many of whom live 
month-to-month, we are at the same time giving oil companies $4 billion 
in tax breaks.
  Those are not the priorities that I believe in.
  And those are not the priorities that my constituents believe in.
  A budget is a moral document of our priorities. It should say 
something about a country's values.
  That's why, to turn back to Sunday for a second, that heroic rescue 
said so much about our country.
  Americans persevere, Americans fight for their values, and Americans 
are unrelenting in their efforts.
  But we do those things because we want safety and security for our 
families.
  We want to see our children and grandchildren grow up in a country 
where fairness and equity is the order of the day.
  The Republican budget is not about fairness and equity.
  It is about hurting our seniors--and doing so in order to give oil 
companies, who are wealthy beyond belief, additional tax breaks.
  That's not just.
  That's not fair.
  That is not what I came to Congress to fight for.

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