[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15779]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             BUDGET CRISES

  (Mr. MORAN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, the consequences of jumping off this so-
called ``fiscal cliff'' are serious but avoidable if the sacrifice is 
shared. My concern is that the domestic discretionary accounts don't 
seem to have a seat at the negotiating table. If you don't have a seat 
at the table, you're far more likely to be on the menu.
  Domestic discretionary funding is already projected to fall to 
historically low levels at less than 3 percent of GDP. This is less 
than what existed during the Eisenhower administration when our 
population was much smaller and much younger. These are the programs 
that are the most critical to the future of our country. They fund our 
roads and rails and ports, they support the most important scientific 
research in health and technology and are necessary to educate, feed, 
and house our most vulnerable children and families. Yet they are the 
ones most likely to be targeted for budget savings. If we allow that to 
happen, we'll condemn 16 million children to living their lives on the 
margins of our economy rather than providing them with the means 
necessary to escape the cycle of poverty as adults.
  A Nation such as ours cannot meet the challenges of the 21st century 
without making the necessary investments in our human and our physical 
infrastructure and in cutting-edge basic research in health and 
technology. We shouldn't further diminish our future in order to get 
ourselves through this artificially created budget crisis.

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