Congressional Black Caucus Hour

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I thank the gentlewoman from the Virgin Islands. I appreciate how much you care about people.

Indeed, Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government touches all of us, every single person who lives in America. The Federal budget touches each one of us in some way or another. Whether or not it would be when we call 9/11 for police help or whether or not we call 9/11 for the fire department, or even when we are sending our children to school, the teachers, they are touched by the Federal budget.

What we now have, which has been introduced on Friday by the folks on the other side of the aisle, my Republican brothers and sisters, is an assault on each one of us. It's an extremist position that they have taken to cut things that are so important to Americans' quality of life. And I just simply don't believe that the majority of the American people are in favor of eliminating the positions of thousands of police officers across this land; of leaving fire departments high and dry, with not enough personnel. And we certainly don't want our schools to have hundreds of kids in one classroom because we don't pay for teachers. Those positions are going to be hurt and severely impacted with these extremist budget cuts that are being recommended by the Republicans.

Certainly, they want to break the backs of the unions that represent these employees because they know that the Federal Government--they know that these workers are protected by moneys that the Federal Government transfers to the States and local governments. In fact, with the recovery bill that was passed out of this very body back in 2009, $800-some-odd billion, it was the greatest transfer of Federal dollars to the States in the history of this Nation. And what it did, Mr. Speaker, was to save the jobs of police officers, firefighters, municipal workers, and teachers across this land.

But we are now at the point where there is no understanding, no admission that that recovery package actually helped, when in fact it did. Lots of people would not be working right now if it had not been for that recovery package. What we want to do now is exactly the opposite. We want to cut the budget, we want to cut aid and assistance to States and local governments to such a degree that it will force those governments to start laying off workers en masse. And it's not good for America, it's not good for Americans. And certainly there is a better way.

Especially when you think about it, we could pay for it if we eliminate some of these tax breaks for the wealthy and from people who don't need them.

Take the oil companies, for example. Can they afford to lose some of their multibillion dollar tax breaks in that great big, unwieldy Tax Code? Sure, they can. That's going to help us, but there's nothing like that coming from my friends on the other side of the aisle.

They just simply want to balance this budget on the backs of the working people of this country. They want to turn this country into a pink slip nation, and they want to balance the budget on the backs of working people. So I'm going to do everything I can to speak on behalf of the shrinking middle class, who are the people I serve.

Thank you, Congresswoman.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source