Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member Spratt, thank you for the opportunity to testify before your committee and for your continued leadership on budgetary issues. The world has changed a great deal since we debated last year’s budget resolution. Unfortunately, our nation’s fiscal outlook has changed a great deal as well. After building the largest surpluses ever, we now face deficits as far as the eye can see. The budget submitted by President Bush properly devotes substantial resources to the war on terrorism and homeland security, but it fails to put us back on the course of fiscal strength. Instead, his proposal returns our nation to deficit spending, raids the Social Security and Medicare trust fund surpluses, and fails to promote economic growth.
Last year, Democrats argued that sacrificing needed investments in children and families in order to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy would harm our economy. Now, despite evidence that the policies of the Bush Administration have not promoted economic growth, the President’s budget contains more of the same.
The President has proposed to cut education, health care, job training, and transportation funding, yet still managed to provide nearly $600 billion in tax cuts. In total, his budget cuts funding for programs outside of defense and homeland security by $4.3 billion from last year’s level. This will result in a shortfall of $15.8 billion below the level necessary to maintain current services. Once again, these sacrifices are requested in order to pay for tax cuts for those who don’t need them. When we have surpluses, the Administration’s solution is to cut taxes. When we have deficits, the Administration’s solution is to cut taxes.
I have often said that our nation’s budget is a statement of our values. When we fail to invest in children and families, we fail to reflect our true values. That failure has a particularly strong impact on women and children.
By freezing funds for child care and after school programs, this budget makes it harder to balance work and family responsibilities. By freezing funding for domestic violence programs, this budget makes it harder for victims to break free from an abusive relationship. By freezing funding for birth control and essential reproductive health services, this budget does not support responsible choices and disproportionately hurts low-income women.
The consequences are real.
Reducing funding for Safe and Drug Free Schools weakens efforts to prevent school-based violence and illegal drug, alcohol, and tobacco use, jeopardizing the health and safety of our children. Decreasing funds to reduce infant mortality and strengthen maternal and child health programs hurts kids’ chances of growing up to be healthy adults.
Women still earn an average of 76 cents for every dollar earned by men, and the wage gap increased between 1995 and 2000 in many industries. Slashing the resources available to agencies that support working women not only fails to respond to this inequity, but it also makes it much more difficult for women to support their families. We should be supporting equal pay for equal work, not undermining the agencies that work towards that goal.
These sacrifices do not reflect our values, yet the President’s budget asks Americans to trade these investments for tax cuts. We all want to do our part to make our homeland secure and defeat terrorism, and I look forward to working with the President on those areas where we have common ground, but we need to do better in the budget resolution. We need a budget with a strategy to climb out of deficits and help the economy recover, and we need a budget that reflects our values by investing in children and families. Thank you again for this opportunity to testify.