[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 6066-6068]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1930
            THE IMPACT OF THE RYAN BUDGET ON AMERICA'S WOMEN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Brooks of Indiana) Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 3, 2013, the Chair recognizes the 
gentlewoman from Maryland (Ms. Edwards) for 27 minutes as the designee 
of the minority leader.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I thank the gentleman for his remarks.
  Madam Speaker, I want to rise this evening to discuss our annual 
budget. Congress has a number of responsibilities, but a big one is 
that Congress is tasked annually with developing a budget that lays out 
our Nation's priorities in spending and lays out a budget that reflects 
our values.
  Democrats have been working to provide a fair shot for everyone to 
succeed by creating good-paying jobs and an opportunity for working 
families. Our country is, in fact, strongest when our economy grows 
from the middle out, and not from the top down.
  Unfortunately the fiscal year 2015 Republican budget introduced by 
Paul Ryan takes the opposite approach. It benefits the few at the top 
by showering tax breaks on millionaires and corporate special 
interests, while shifting the burden of the Federal budget to middle 
class families.
  Once again, Mr. Ryan and Republicans have been convinced that the 
best way to help working families is to stop helping working families. 
Unfortunately, the Ryan budget resolution would actually harm families, 
most especially, women and children.
  According to the Economic Policy Institute, the Ryan budget would 
cost jobs and slow our recovery, costing 1.1 million jobs in fiscal 
year 2015, and rising to about 3 million in the following year.
  Republicans are raising taxes on middle class families with children 
by an average of at least $2,000 a year in order to cut taxes for 
millionaires.
  Now, let's just take a look at that, Madam Speaker. A recent analysis 
by Citizens for Tax Justice finds that, under the Ryan plan, taxpayers 
with income exceeding $1 million in 2015 would receive an average net 
tax decrease of over $200,000 in that fiscal year.
  Now, let's balance this. Families with children would have to pay an 
additional $2,000, and millionaires would get the benefit of a decrease 
in their taxes of $200,000. $2,000 for working families, and $200,000 
for millionaires.
  Now, of course, the Ryan budget doesn't touch tax breaks for big oil 
and gas companies that ship jobs overseas. After all, you have to have 
priorities, priorities and budgets that are a statement of values.
  So it is very clear that the Ryan priorities and the Ryan budget 
priorities benefit millionaires. It is very clear, unsurprisingly, that 
the Ryan budget also repeals, yet again, the Affordable Care Act, 
despite the fact that 9.3 million people now have health care as a 
result of the Affordable Care Act, that according to a Rand Corporation 
study.
  Now, repealing the Affordable Care Act would allow insurance 
companies, once again, to treat a woman and being a woman as a 
preexisting condition, would once again enable insurance companies to 
charge women more than men.
  Insurance companies would also be able to deny women coverage because 
of preexisting conditions, including a history of domestic violence, 
breast and cervical cancer, and C-sections.
  Under this budget, millions of women and their families would be 
stripped of the private marketplace health plans and expanded Medicaid 
coverage that they have obtained under the Affordable Care Act.

[[Page 6067]]

  In fact, more than 47 million woman would again have to pay out-of-
pocket-costs for lifesaving preventive health services like mammograms 
and cervical cancer screenings. Up to 4 million women seniors, that is 
right, 4 million women seniors would fall, once again, into the 
prescription drug doughnut hole, and they would have to start reaching 
back into their pockets once again to pay for their prescription drugs 
because the Ryan budget reopens the doughnut hole.
  I want to repeat that for the American people. The Ryan budget 
reopens the doughnut hole that Democrats closed. As a result, seniors 
in the doughnut hole will pay an additional $18,000 over 10 years, on 
average, for their prescription drugs.
  Look, women make up about 55 percent of Medicare enrollees, and they 
would suffer the most, frankly, when the Medicare guarantee is 
replaced, under the Ryan budget, with a voucher in 2024.
  That is right. The Ryan budget wants to change the Medicare system, 
take away the Medicare guarantee for the 55 percent of the enrollees 
who are women, for all enrollees, with premiums for traditional 
Medicare going up about 50 percent on average. Think what that means 
for America's women who are seniors.
  Indeed, the Republican plan would draw traditional Medicare into a 
death spiral. It would end it as we know it.
  Not just that, but the Ryan budget also slashes Medicaid by $732 
billion over 10 years, or nearly 25 percent in 2024, with the largest 
impact on women.
  I will continue, because the Ryan budget does such devastation to 
America's women, that it bears repeating. But with that, I will yield 
some time to my colleague from Nevada (Ms. Titus).
  Ms. TITUS. Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my friend, Donna 
Edwards for organizing tonight's important colloquy and Special Order 
to talk about the Ryan Republican budget and its unacceptable impact on 
women.
  For the fourth year in a row, Chairman Ryan has proposed an 
uncompromising budget plan that is out of touch with Nevada's 
priorities and the country's vision for the future.
  Chairman Ryan has used a lot of gimmicks in this budget, but no 
amount of chicanery can hide what it means for women.
  Instead of laying out a plan to strengthen and grow the middle class, 
Representative Ryan's budget disproportionately harms low-income women 
and the families they struggle to support. It also undermines the 
health and economic security of the elderly and the disabled, most of 
whom are women, as you have just pointed out.
  It would repeal the Affordable Care Act and the critical protections 
and benefits this landmark legislation offers to women. Millions of 
women and their families would have to pay out of pocket for lifesaving 
preventive health services such as mammograms and cervical cancer 
screenings.
  Insurance companies would be allowed, once again, to treat being a 
woman as a preexisting condition. And over 200,000 women in Nevada 
alone would lose access to affordable health insurance that is provided 
by the ACA.
  The Ryan budget also threatens a laundry list of vital programs that 
help southern Nevada women and children, such as SNAP, WIC, Head Start, 
TANF, and Pell grants, just to name a few.
  Currently, over 75,000 Nevada women and children rely on WIC, and 
358,000 Nevadans depend on SNAP, 154,000 of whom are children. In 
addition, nearly 5,000 children in Nevada participate in Head Start, 
and 33,000 Nevada students benefit from Pell grants.
  Under the Ryan budget, women could lose access to these critical 
programs, programs that help them put food on the table and give their 
children access to the education they need to succeed.
  The Ryan budget also eliminates the Brand USA program, which fosters 
international tourism, an industry that employs many women in service 
jobs in Nevada and around the country.
  Instead of protecting women and children, Representative Ryan and the 
Republican Party would rather provide the richest one-tenth of 1 
percent, those households making more than $3.3 million a year, with a 
$1.2 million tax cut.
  Now, the Federal budget is a blueprint for our Nation's future. It is 
a statement of our priorities as a Nation, and it should provide a path 
forward that we can all be proud of.
  My constituents in Las Vegas, and our constituents all around the 
country, deserve better than this rehashed Ryan budget which slashes 
programs for children, dismantles health care, eliminates the safety 
net for seniors, and defunds education and needed research and 
development.
  This budget is not a road to prosperity, as Representative Ryan calls 
it; it is a road to ruin. And as someone said recently, it is like 
giving the middle finger to the middle class.
  Instead, we need a balanced plan that protects women and their 
families while making investments in our future. Let's work on that 
kind of budget.
  So, again, I want to thank my friends who have come to the floor 
tonight to point out these problems.
  Ms. EDWARDS. I thank the gentlewoman from Nevada for pointing out the 
many ways in which the Ryan budget impacts the women of Nevada and 
impacts the women of this country.
  The gentlewoman mentioned something that I think, again, bears 
repeating. The Ryan budget cuts food stamps by $137 billion over the 
next 10 years, which would, in fact, be devastating for millions of 
America's women, because 62 percent of adult food stamp recipients, in 
fact, are women.
  And at least 200,000 women and children would be dropped from the 
special supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and 
children, if the 15 percent cut in 2016 non-defense appropriations was 
applied across the board.
  The Ryan budget calls for at least $500 billion in cuts to income 
support programs like the earned income tax credit and the child tax 
credit, unemployment insurance, the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance 
Program, Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy 
Families, and child nutrition programs, including school lunches. That 
is right: taking food right out of the mouths of our youngest children 
who need that nutrition in order to learn and be 21st century learners.
  Sixty-six percent of individuals who depend on senior meals like 
Meals on Wheels are women. Those senior meals would be cut by 15 
percent in 2016, if the GOP cut in non-defense appropriations was 
applied proportionately.
  Up to 5.6 million women students would find college less affordable 
due to $145 billion in cuts to Pell grants under the Ryan budget.
  Up to 170,000 children would lose access to Head Start, and up to 3.4 
million disadvantaged children at 8,000 schools would lose vital Title 
I education programs.
  I keep going on, and it seems incredibly devastating to America's 
families and, particularly, to America's women. It is almost as though 
the Ryan budget were a Mack truck just running right over top of 
America's women.
  Now, Democrats have an agenda and a budget that, in fact, reflects 
our values of strengthening the middle class, of closing the 
opportunity gap, of enabling women and their families to succeed. It is 
a budget that helps women and families address some of the biggest 
economic challenges facing them.
  It calls for raising the Federal minimum wage, for ensuring equal pay 
for equal work, for expanding family and medical leave, and for making 
child care more affordable.
  In my home State of Maryland, child care costs for an infant can run 
to $12,936 a year for child care for one infant. In a lot of cases, 
that is more than you pay for a 4-year institution, or a community 
college, just to have your child in child care.
  These are devastating for America's families. In fact, America's 
families are spending 35 percent of their income, of their family's 
income, in child care. That is more than we are spending on mortgages. 
It is certainly more than we are saving, Madam Speaker.
  As we know, women make on average just 77 cents on a dollar a man 
makes.

[[Page 6068]]

For African American women and Latinas, the gap is even larger. African 
American women earn just 64 cents, and Latinas earn only 54 cents for 
every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men.
  Two-thirds of the minimum wage earners in this country are women, and 
family and leave protections fail to cover nearly half of full-time 
employees.

                              {time}  1945

  The Democrats' budget, in fact, takes a look at these things and 
says, you know what, people are working hard, and they are trying to 
take care of themselves and their families; and, in fact, in this 
country, with so many women who are either principal breadwinners or, 
certainly, partner breadwinners in their families, the cuts envisioned 
by the Ryan budget would be devastating for America's women.
  We know that child care expenses, for example, that are important to 
men and women are consuming so much of American families' income, and 
yet the Ryan budget would take $2,000 away from working families and 
enable millionaires to get the benefit of $200,000. Think about that--
your average family, $2,000; millionaires, $200,000.
  According to the Ryan budget, the budget actually fails to call for 
bills promoting equal pay for equal work for women. It fails to 
increase the minimum wage. It fails to provide for paid sick days for 
workers. The Ryan budget fails to help working families afford the cost 
of child care.
  We do have solutions, as Democrats, to these challenges. I mean, 
after all, it is really true that, when women succeed, America 
succeeds. Our agenda ensures that women will have the tools they need 
to fully participate in the 21st century economy.
  Madam Speaker, Republican priorities are making tax cuts for the 
wealthy permanent, and they are shrinking the size of government, 
regardless of the damage that it would cause.
  As I have detailed, the Ryan budget doubles down on policies that, in 
fact, hurt working families. I think that it is time, Madam Speaker, 
for us to pay attention to what is happening to women--to women who are 
increasingly in the workplace, but are saddled with the burden of 
incomes that are not keeping pace, needing assistance to help them get 
by, not because they are not working, not because they are not 
contributing; and the Ryan budget does more devastation to America's 
women.
  So I would urge my colleagues to, once again, take a look at this and 
to say, you know, in a country that has so much and that promises so 
much and where there really should be more opportunity for all, that we 
don't need a budget that just rips apart the lives of women and 
children and families, and the Ryan budget does just that.
  I look today at the Congressional Progressive Caucus alternative 
budget. I voted for that because it is good for America. I looked at 
this Congressional Black Caucus budget. I voted for that because it is 
good for America.
  I will look at the Democratic alternative to the devastating Ryan 
budget because it is good for America. It is good for America's 
families. It is good for America's women.
  Madam Speaker, with that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________