President's Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality

PRESIDENT'S GAP BETWEEN RHETORIC AND REALITY -- (House of Representatives - March 08, 2006)

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, just 35 days ago I attended the President's State of the Union address with other Members of Congress right here in this Chamber. And that night I was very much pleased to hear the President talk about the importance of maintaining America's competitive edge in an era of increasing global economic competition.

This is an urgent issue facing our Nation and one on which I think there should be strong bipartisan support. In fact, many of us in this House have been working for some time on what we call an ``innovation agenda'' to ensure that America stays number one when it comes to international economic competition. Indeed, last fall House Democrats unveiled a blueprint for an innovation agenda.

So I was pleased with many of my colleagues to hear the President join this effort in the State of the Union address. He said this was going to be a priority. In fact, that night he told the American people, ``Tonight I announce an American competitiveness initiative to encourage innovation throughout our economy and give our Nation's children a firm grounding in math and science.''

He went on to talk about the importance of the No Child Left Behind Initiative and proposed an increase in training teachers for math and sciences.

Now, a few days after the State of the Union address, the President sent his budget to Congress. Now, we all know that the budget is what is a true reflection of the President's real priorities. That is where the American people have a chance to see whether the President's words at the State of the Union address are backed up by action. That is his opportunity to show that he means what he says. And I must confess, I was very disappointed with the President's budget and I believe the American people will be disappointed, too, because his rhetoric that night in the State of the Union in this Chamber was not matched by the reality of his budget.

He may correctly want to invest more in math and science, but if you look closely at his budget, $115 million of the $380 million investment is simply taken from other important education initiatives. It is a shell game. Out of one pocket, into another. And what is worse, if you look at the President's proposal for No Child Left Behind, which he talked about in his State of the Union address, this year it is $15 billion dollars short of what this House and this Senate and the Congress and the President said they would provide. And that is cumulatively $40 billion short of what had been pledged.

Now, what about higher education? Our students in this global economic competition have to be able to compete in a knowledge-based economy. Yet students and families are seeing across this country increasing tuition rates, making it harder and harder for them to pay for the tuition and making college out of reach for more and more Americans.

So what did the President and the Congress do? The day after the State of the Union address, this House passed a budget reconciliation bill that cut $12 billion on student aid, the biggest rate on student aid in the history of this country, passed by the Republican Congress. And with the stroke of a pen, the President signed that into law and made college more difficult for many millions of Americans to reach.

Now, the President also told us in the State of the Union address that to maintain our competitive edge we have to invest in scientific research, and he was right. But while he increased, rightly, his investment in the physical sciences, if you look at the medical research budget, it is flat. And in fact, if you look at 18 of the 19 institutes at the National Institutes of Health, they are cut. This violates sort of the first principle that doctors have in medicine: First, do no harm. Those cuts will harm our ability to maintain our competitive edge in the medical research area. We need to get serious.

I am proud to have joined with my colleague, Mr. Inslee, to introduce a number of new provisions with respect to maintaining competitiveness, as well as others.

The President also told us what many of us already knew: that we are addicted to foreign oil. If you look actually at his proposals in this area, they are rather anemic. In fact, his budget cut our investment in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. And Americans may remember the spectacle just a few weeks ago when the President wanted to go out and visit the National Renewable Energy Laboratory only to discover before the great photo-op that his budget had cut funding for that, and 38 employees were laid off. So they had to scramble around to rehire those employees so the President could get his sound bite and his photo-op.

We have got to put aside the sound bites and the photo-ops. And instead of having the sound bite policy, we need a very sound energy policy. And again, many of us have worked on legislation in this area.

Mr. Speaker, I think the message is clear: You have to not just look at what people say but what people do. I urge the American people to recognize the gap between rhetoric and reality in the President's budget and see that there are alternatives that many of us have proposed.

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