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Congress Goes Home Without Completing Its Work
House of Representatives - October 18, 2005

Mr. Speaker, the American people might wonder why we have gone home today at 1 o'clock on a Thursday. Are there no problems facing this country? Have we rebuilt the gulf coast? Have we dealt with the problems in Iraq? Have we dealt with everything that is troubling in this society? You have to ask yourself, where did the Congress go? Why did they go home? Why does the Republican leadership declare that no, we are not going to be here, we are not going to be here on Monday. I think this Congress is pretty much having trouble here doing their job.

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The reason we are not here on the floor dealing with the issues today is that the issues are tough. And the Republicans do not want to go into Thanksgiving with everybody saying, well, they did it again. They took more from the needy and they gave it to the greedy.

But that is what the debate was about this week. It is about what kind of amendments, what kind of cuts. Amendments is a fancy congressional word for the fact that we are going to cut the budget.

Now, where are those cuts coming from and why can the Republicans not make up their minds what they want to cut? Well, they are looking at the Medicaid program. They want to cut $10 billion there. They want to just raise it; now, just 1 more billion would not be very much. Just a nick out of some people.

Student loans. You just heard the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) give the facts about that issue. You are talking about a $7 or $8 billion cut in student loans. You know, those sick people, what can they do for themselves? Right. Take it away from them. What about the students? Take it away from them.

How about agriculture? Now you say, well, rich farmers. No. No. No. Half of the money spent in the agriculture budget is spent on the food stamp program. Buying the surpluses of our farmers and giving them to the poor of this country.

Now, why would we talk about cutting another $4 or $5 billion? No, they only want $1.5 billion. Excuse me. $1.5 billion out of food stamps. So we are taking away health care and food and ability to go to college, and then they come to the Ways and Means Committee that I sit on. Those are not even mandatory. Those are just things that that Congress said that we would do.

But when you get to the Ways and Means Committee, you come to things that are written in law, and they are called entitlements. If you are an American, you are entitled. It does not make any difference where you live, how much you have; you are entitled. And they are now going to go after those entitlements.

Now, I spoke a little bit before about a couple of them. One of the things they want to do is go after people who have had unemployment payments, unemployment insurance overpayments. They figure that they can get that back out of their taxes. That is at a very time when we have rising unemployment in this country. We are going to try and save $1 billion going back and squeezing workers that have been out of work for 3 months or 6 months or whatever.

Anybody who is at the bottom of the pile should watch out for these guys, because they are coming after them with a sharp stick. They are going to take it away, and why are they taking it away? I mean, you have got to ask yourself, why would they cut food stamps? Why would they cut health care? Why would they cut school loans? Why would they go after the unemployed? Why would they go after grandparents who are taking care of foster kids? Why would they do that?

Did you know that we had to give tax cuts to the rich? If we do not give tax cuts to the rich, why, the rich will not be rich. Well, they will be less rich, I mean. If we do not finish those tax cuts that are before this Congress, somehow they are not going to get that $100,000 tax cut if they make more than $1 million.

Now, think about the tears. Think about the tears up in those apartments and those houses where those people have been expecting that $100,000 tax cut that they were going to get. Who knows what they are going to do with it. I am sure that they are going to run out and give it to the poor.

But these decisions that are being made in this body are being made by people who stand out here and beat their chests and talk about how much they care about family values. Is it a family values budget that cuts food and medical care and student aid? I do not think so. And they are going to find out at the next election.