This afternoon on the floor of the House of Representatives, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) issued the following statement in opposition of the Republican leadership’s budget resolution for fiscal 2003, H. Con. Res. 353.
Mr. Speaker, today we should have had the opportunity to be engaged in a debate over our federal budget. This budget debate should reflect professional judgment and our most imaginative thinking to create a budget for America’s future.
We don’t all agree on every issue. But we should have been able to have a debate about those issues. Instead, we’re faced with a closed rule that forecloses some of that debate, and we are faced with a Republican budget that is a sham.
It is a sham because it hides from view the billions of dollars the Republicans are draining from the Social Security Trust Fund. It is a sham because it disguises the inadequate prescription drug benefits for seniors as it drains the Medicare Trust Fund.
It is a sham because it ignores the cost of the supplemental Appropriations bill that we know President Bush will be sending to the Congress
When you review the Republican budget, you have to wonder: what happened to all the budget deficit hawks on the Republican side? Have they become an endangered species? Indeed, I think they have become extinct. For such a long time, they fought so fiercely to reduce the federal deficit and eliminate the national debt, and now they are extinct.
And where did all the Republicans go who voted five times -- five times --for a lock box to prohibit using the Social Security Trust Fund for anything but Social Security.
Those same Republicans have broken promises to the American people by an all-out raid in this budget on the Social Security Trust Fund.
In addition to being a sham, this Republican budget is a shame, because it misses an opportunity to create a fiscally sound, balanced budget that invests in America’s future and grows our economy by creating jobs and lowering interest rates.
I believe that our federal budget should be a statement of our national values. I ask you, my colleagues, is it a statement of your values to raid the Social Security Trust Fund and decimate the Medicare Trust Fund? Is a statement of your national values to undermine the ability of Americans to retire in dignity? Is it a statement of your values to put our children into oppressive debt to bolster a failed Republican economic plan?
The Republican leadership’s budget is a desperate attempt to cover up the total failure of their economic plan. In an attempt to cook the books, the Republicans used the more optimistic Office of Management and Budget estimates, even though they shut down the government in 1995-96 -- you remember that -- to insist on Congressional Budget Office estimates.
One year ago, the Republicans promised to protect Social Security, provide a Medicare prescription drug benefit, and pay down the federal debt.
But their budget fails to balance the budget, fails to protect Social Security, fails to provide adequate funding for Medicare prescription drugs, and fails to fund the education promises signed into law by President Bush.
The request from Treasury Secretary O’Neill to raise the debt limit by $750 billion to finance the government past the 2004 election is an ultimate symbol of the failure of the Republican economic plan.
I urge our colleagues to vote no, a billion, billion, billon times no, on the Republican sham budget. Thank you.