[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11141-11142]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           REPUBLICAN BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, one of my colleagues came to the floor this 
morning and said: It kind of smells like bacon in here. I said: That is 
because the Republicans are cooking their budget just off the floor. 
That is what they are doing. They are cooking up a budget with cooked 
books.
  Here we are with a national debt of nearly $20 trillion and the 
highest priority on the Republican side of the aisle--reflected both in 
their so-called healthcare bill, which was actually tax cuts only for 
people who earned over $250,000 a year--is tax cuts for people who earn 
over $250,000 a year, particularly targeted toward those in the top 
one-tenth of 1 percent--those who earn millions of dollars a year.
  They say that is the cure for all of America's ills: just cut their 
taxes, and the benefits will trickle down onto all the rest of us. I 
think a lot of people don't much like to be trickled on in that manner.
  What are the priorities, other than tax cuts, in their budget? A 
massive increase in spending at the Pentagon.
  Remember, the Pentagon is the only agency of the Federal Government 
that is unauditable. That is right. Every year, every agency of the 
government is subject to an audit, but not the Pentagon. They say: Hey, 
we can't be audited. The books are a mess. We can't be audited.
  Last fall, there was a report that $125 billion went missing from the 
Pentagon budget. The Pentagon attempted to repress that report. God 
forbid we should bring any fiscal accountability to the Pentagon. They 
are just going to shower more money on them, in the hope that some of 
it gets spent on the real needs of the military. But there is no sense 
of responsibility there.
  How are they going to get to their illusory balanced budget if they 
are having massive tax cuts for the wealthiest among us and massive 
increases in spending at the Pentagon, with no fiscal accountability?
  Well, simple. We are just going to cut the programs that average and 
struggling Americans depend upon, like student financial aid. They 
don't know anybody at the country club whose kids need help going to 
college. So those programs get cut. Hungry kids? They have never met 
one. Never met a hungry kid. So let's cut the school lunch program 
again, and let's cut food stamps for families.
  But they are breaking some new ground here and breaking some of the 
President's promises. The President promised he would not cut Medicare. 
Well, their proposed budget cuts Medicare. Yes, it cuts Medicare. It 
would cut $500 billion out of Medicare. It assumes that, instead of 
getting a guaranteed benefit, an earned benefit that every American 
over 65 can have, you will get vouchers, and you can go into the 
private insurance market and do better. It sounds a little bit like the 
failing ObamaCare plan that they talk about all the time. Now they want 
to put seniors in that same boat, instead of guaranteed Medicare.
  Then, of course, $1.5 trillion cuts in Medicaid. That is welfare. 
Well, actually, the largest recipients of Medicaid are seniors in long-
term care. A lot of people are going to be surprised when grandma or 
granddad is out in the street or comes home and needs a lot of help and 
assistance and there is none to be had.

                              {time}  1015

  So that is the largest group.
  Now, what is the second largest group of freeloaders on Medicaid?
  Oh, it is kids. God forbid that kids should get medical help when 
they are growing up. Let's have them long-term, lifetime disabled. Deny 
them medical care when they are young and we will just worry about all 
that later. This is quite a set of priorities they are putting before 
us and fiscally irresponsible.
  So as I have in past years, I am introducing a fiscally responsible 
balanced

[[Page 11142]]

budget amendment to the Constitution, not like the Republican one that 
said you have to have two-thirds to increase taxes and one vote to cut 
taxes, no. This one would say you have to balance the budget, but you 
do it by prudent reductions in spending, and also you have to deal with 
the revenue side. And, oh, by the way, mine protects Medicare and 
Social Security totally from these sorts of cuts. It makes them into 
the entitlement programs they are supposed to be that the Republicans 
want to do away with in their budget.
  So I think there is a better way to go forward, but just like in 
their fake healthcare bill, which was really disguised tax cuts for the 
wealthiest among us, they are now giving us a supposedly prudent fiscal 
budget blueprint, which, again, is huge tax cuts for the wealthy, 
massive increases for the Pentagon and cuts for everybody else.

                          ____________________