Deficit Reduction Act of 2005
DEFICIT REDUCTION ACT OF 2005 -- (House of Representatives - November 08, 2005)
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Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me and for his hard work and energy, his effort and commitment to the people of this Nation.
I consider it a privilege to serve on the House Budget Committee, helping to lay out a fiscal blueprint for the Nation to work toward crafting a document that reflects the values and the priorities of the American people.
Budgets are just not numbers on a page, Mr. Speaker. They live and they breathe. They are about human beings and what is happening in their lives. As this House prepares to consider $54.2 billion in a budget package, I find it hard to believe that the American people's priorities would include denying food stamps to 300,000 Americans and 40,000 children. I find it hard to believe their values tell them that we should respond to the skyrocketing health care costs by charging children from poor families for doctors' visits; that their answer to unaffordable child care costs would be denying child care assistance to another 270,000 children of working parents, cutting food stamps, charging poor families for visits to the pediatrician, denying child care to a quarter million working parents.
Those are not the values or the priorities of the American people; but it is becoming increasingly clear that they are the priorities of the Republican Party, the Republican House leadership, the Republican administration, and the party that controls all three branches of government right now.
Let us take a look. What other priorities do the Republicans bring to bear with this reconciliation package?
One, let us make it harder for people to attend college. If you attended college in the last 50 years, you received financial aid from the Federal Government. Following World War II, you had the benefit of the GI Bill. Eight million veterans were given education vouchers at the same time it doubled the number of homeowners.
Thirty-five years ago, Congress passed the Higher Education Act and said that the Federal Government was going to open the doors of colleges, regardless of family wealth; that, in fact, education was the great equalizer in this country, that because of your God-given talent you could succeed. Federal student aid has helped millions of people go to college who otherwise might never have had that opportunity.
This bill turns its back on that commitment. It leaves the typical student borrower, and I say to young people and their families today, understand this, you are already saddled with $17,500 in debt and you are going to pay an additional $5,800 in interest and taxes over the life of your loan if this bill is passed.
At a time when our Nation faces unprecedented competition from the likes of China and India, this majority puts up financial barriers that prevent 4.4 million high school graduates from attending a 4-year public college over the next decade; 123,000 students in my State of Connecticut alone will not be able to attend college. This when the United States is projected to face a shortage of up to 12 million college-educated workers by the year 2020.
Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation impacts children and families. It also strips protections which would guarantee more than 5 million children who receive the medical services they need no longer receive them: medical health services, optical care, hearing aids, cuts to child support enforcement by 40 percent, eliminating the federally funded foster care benefits for grandparents and relatives of abused and neglected children. This bill goes out of its way to make the lives of Americans already living on the margins even more difficult.
A final point. Food stamps, a program which goes straight to the heart of the government's responsibility, a moral responsibility to people, 25 million people in this Nation rely on food stamps. It is a program of efficiency and competence. The cuts result in 300,000 food stamp recipients losing eligibility. That includes 40,000 children. When you cut food stamps, which is the direct measure for eligibility for the school lunch program, that means 40,000 kids will no longer be eligible for a school breakfast program or a school lunch program.
Why? Why are we doing this? Let us lay it on the table. It is about tax cuts, tax cuts for those who need them least. Fifty-three percent of the tax cuts go to the upper 1 or 2 percent of the public making over $1 million a year. $70 billion of tax cuts, capital gains, and dividend tax cuts go to Americans who are living lives of comfort and lives of leisure. And paying for these tax cuts will be 40,000 kids going hungry.
The majority is effectively saying, so much for morality, so much for values, so much for the common good. These are Republican priorities. They are not mine. They are not my constituents. I think we will all learn over the course of the next year they are not the American people's. This Nation must understand what is potentially going to befall them if this bill is passed. I urge you to stand tall and say ``no'' to these cuts which will do nothing but ravage the good people of this Nation.
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