Concurrent Resolution on the Budget, Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. Mr. President, I wish to follow on the comments that were
being articulated by the Senator from Vermont. He has done an excellent
job laying out these issues for the American people to deliberate upon
this week as we debate the budget of the United States of America.

Right now, millions of Americans are gripped by March Madness and the
Final Four showdown, but for our Nation's seniors and the middle class,
the real March madness is happening in Congress with the proposed
Republican budget.

Our country isn't like the big dance. Our country was not built on a
zero-sum game, where one side wins and the other side loses. But that
is exactly what this Republican budget does. It picks winners, and it
picks losers.

Let's take a look at the GOP's budget brackets. The Republican final
four features their perennial favorites. In the first game, they have
seniors versus special interests.

Well, in this Republican budget, it removes 11 million families from
Medicaid, including 400,000 seniors in my State of Massachusetts alone.
It turns Medicare into a voucher program. It forces millions of
seniors, including 80,000 in Massachusetts who receive Medicare, to pay
$1,000 more for their prescription drugs next year. It does all of this
while preserving tax breaks for special interests, such as the
deductions for corporate jets and for shipping jobs overseas.

The budget preserves billions for atomic bombs of the past--supported
by the defense industry--which is why I introduced legislation today to
cut $100 billion over 10 years from our bloated nuclear weapons
program.

So there are no surprises yet in the GOP budget bracket. Special
interests advance and seniors lose. That is the first match. Seniors
lose. It is not unexpected.

In the next game, it is a battle of generations. It is the old guard
of Wall Street against the new blood of our Nation, our students. So
what does the GOP budget do?

Well, it cuts 8 million Pell grants for college students by almost
one-third, making college less affordable for millions of young people
and their families. It yanks 100,000 children from the Head Start
Program over the next 10 years. It does all that while not meeting the
needs of the Wall Street cops on the beat at the Commodity Futures
Trading Commission, and it puts Americans at risk from predatory
lenders and credit card scams by continuing the GOP effort to kill the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. So in the battle between the Wall
Street boardrooms and America's classrooms, it is the big money over
the little guy yet again.

In the next David versus Goliath matchup, it is America's working
families against billionaires. Surely the spirit and character of
America's working families is deserving of a win. But there is no
Cinderella story with the Republican budget. That is because it kicks
nearly 900,000 families off of low-income energy assistance. So
families will need to decide between heating and eating.

This budget includes $660 billion in cuts over the next decade to
Federal programs that lift up our most vulnerable, such as food stamps,
school lunches, school nutrition programs--slashed, slashed, slashed.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 69 percent of
nondefense cuts included in the House and Senate budget resolutions
come from these programs that serve the poor, the sick, and the needy
in our society.

This budget sticks to the Republican policy of not increasing the
minimum wage, keeping millions of Americans who want to get into the
middle class out of the game. Are the billionaires asked to do more
with less? Do they have any tax breaks taken away? Do they pay a little
more to make sure the less fortunate are better off?

No, the Republican refs make sure that the Republican playing field
remains tilted in their favor. It is another win for the rich.

Now, the matchup we have all been waiting for is the Big Oil
juggernaut against clean energy and climate change. In a Republican
Senate, Big Oil is undefeated, but can upstart American clean energy
companies pull out a win? Well, the Republican budget protects billions
of dollars in subsidies to the oil companies while killing the wind
energy tax credit. The Republican unwillingness to extend the tax
credit has already cost us 30,000 American jobs in the last few years.

Republicans continue to deny the existence of climate change by
stopping funding to protect communities against sea level rise and
stronger storms, even though 2014 was the warmest year on record and
extreme weather impacted every part of the country. It does all of this
while handing over more of our public land to Big Oil and to coal
companies instead of preserving it for all Americans.

So, who is the winner? No surprise, Big Oil. They keep all of their
tax breaks, even as we are taking money away from seniors, from
students, from working families, and from a clean energy future in our
country. It is no surprise, because when you have the Republican budget
final four--special interests, Wall Street, billionaires, and Big Oil--
the fix was in from the start.

Unlike the March Madness games we love to watch each year, there are
never any upsets in the Republicans' bracket. There are no budget
buzzer beaters. In fact, the only ones upset here are grandma, grandpa,
students, clean energy workers, and hardworking Americans.

Senate Republicans, once again, are trotting out their well-worn
playbook to pick the winners and losers in our society and in our
economy, because in this budget, there are clear winners and there are
clear losers. Special interests score huge on big tax breaks. Wall
Street gets to block legislation. Billionaires take a bigger share of
the winnings, and Big Oil remains undefeated.

Meanwhile, American families and industries lose. Seniors pay more
for health care. Working families pay more for energy. Students pay
more for college. Clean energy companies cut more workers, stopping
this incredible clean energy revolution in our country.

This is the real March madness, the Republican budget that makes
winners out of Big Oil and billionaires, while the clock runs out on
seniors and hardworking Americans, who are left to fend for themselves.

I implore my colleagues to reject this scheme and to create a plan
that does not bust the budgets of families across this Nation. I call
upon my colleagues to reject this completely and totally distorted
sense of priorities for our country.

I call for my colleagues to put together a budget for the future of
our country that invests in students, invests in clean energy, invests
in research, and invests in what the 21st century should be all about,
while we pay the proper respect to the seniors in our country.

We cannot leave behind the poor, the sick, and the elderly. We have
obligations in this country. We understand that this country has been
made the great country that it is--the greatest in the history of the
world--by remembering our obligations to all of those who built our
country--not just those in the upper 1 percentile, who have been the
primary beneficiaries, but the other 99 percent who got up every single
morning and went to work as well, the other 99 percent who built this
country and its values from the ground up. We have an obligation to
them as well. This Republican budget does not reflect that.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the Republican budget. I again thank my
colleague from the State of Vermont for being an articulate,
passionate, and moral voice that ensures that this debate is heard by
every single person in our country.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

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