Speeches and Floor Statements
Congressman David Scott Urges Support of Congressional Black Caucus Budget
Washington,
March 28, 2007
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Chandra Harris
(770-210-5073)
Tags:
Taxes
Congressman Scott Urges Support of Congressional Black Caucus Budget
Today Congressman David Scott (GA-13) took the House Floor to deliver the following remarks in support of the Congressional Black Caucus Budget proposal :
Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Black Caucus is offering a budget to help us get out of the financial mess that we're in. We have seen this chart before; it shows the deficit over the years, how in 1993 we started to eliminate the deficit, ran the budget up to a surplus, creating a 10-year budget of over $5.5 trillion. The policies that have now gotten us into a mess have changed that $5.5 trillion surplus into an almost $3 trillion deficit, a swing of $8.5 trillion. The first thing the Black Congressional Caucus budget does is to repeal the policies that got us into this mess by rolling back the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for that portion of a person's household income over $200,000. By rolling back the brackets for the first two brackets and eliminating the tax cuts for capital gains and dividends, primarily for that portion of the household income over $200,000. People will say it is a big tax cut. So what, those policies got us in the ditch. We are repealing those policies to get out of the ditch. Now what does that do to the budget? The Congressional Black Caucus deficit is better every year than the President's budget. The President's budget is in red, the Democratic alternative is in blue. The Congressional Black Caucus beats both of them every year, except the last year, we only had a $141 billion surplus in the last year, the Democratic budget has $153 billion, but of course, the President's budget is still in the ditch. We have significantly reduced the deficit $339 billion better bottom line cumulatively than the President. We also save interest. By reducing the deficit, we save interest. Every year, we have saved more and more interest. $27 billion less interest paid over 5 years than the President's budget. In fact, $18 billion more than the Democratic alternative. We have also addressed our priorities with the money left over. After we have reduced the deficit and reduced the amount of interest, we have also made important investments. SCHIP, $66 billion more in health care than the Democratic budget, over $100 billion more than the President. We can fund health care for each and every child in No Child Left Behind. We are funding over $158 billion more in education and training than the President. We have honored our veterans by spending $42 billion more than the President's budget. We have attacked fraud, waste and abuse in the Democratic budget. We have made communities more secure with investments in juvenile justice, gang prevention, prison re-entry. We have provided community support through community development block grants in nutrition and housing. We have contributed to diplomacy by fighting global AIDS, child survival. We have spent significantly more in these priorities, Mr. Speaker, than both the Democratic alternative and certainly the President's budget. The Congressional Black Caucus repeals the policy that put us into a mess. We address important priorities that are so important, and we have a much more fiscally responsible budget. We would ask the House to adopt the Congressional Black Caucus budget that gets us out of the mess and puts on the right track. |