DELAURO: REPUBLICAN FY2011 BUDGET HURTS AMERICAN FAMILIES

Washington, DC— Congresswoman Rosa L.DeLauro (CT-3), Ranking Member on the Labor, Education, Health, andHuman Services Appropriations Subcommittee, made the following remarkson the Floor of the United States House of Representatives today.

As Prepared for Delivery

Governing is about choices. Everyone inthis body agrees that we need to get our fiscal house in order, bringdown the deficit and cut programs that do not work. The question beforeus is how we choose to get there.

Unfortunately at almost every turn inthis continuing resolution, the Majority has chosen to keep specialinterests giveaways to big corporate lobbyists while making middle class and working families bear the brunt of the spending cuts. Instead ofending $40 billion in oil company subsidies that this country gives outevery year, they are giving them out right now, this resolution cuts$1.6 billion from our attempts to protect the environment, preventclimate change and it slashes education and infrastructure funding,biomedical research and food safety.

The chairman of the full committee said a moment ago that we are going to cut this deficit by $40 billion bycutting those programs. We could have made up that difference with the$40 billion in the subsidies that we give to the oil companies today.Instead of ending billions in subsidies to big agribusiness, it cutsfunding for food safety inspections, women's health care under Title X,and virtually eliminates the National Health Service.

Instead of ending billions in taxloopholes for corporations, who ship our jobs overseas, it slashesfunding for vital job training services by $1 billion. It ends education programs that our children rely on like Even Start and Teach forAmerica. It ends literacy programs for children in the United Stateswhile at the same time we are providing dollars in Afghanistan to traintheir youngsters in literacy.

Instead of ending the billions in taxbreaks for the wealthiest Americans it guts community health centers by$600 million. It cuts funding for women with infant and children by $500 million, it shortchanges public safety, and it cuts biomedical research and cuts the Centers for Disease Control by 11 percent. The Americanpeople expect better from us, they want our budget to reflect commonsense, mainstream priorities that are good for our country and good forthe middle class.

Instead this resolution offers the status quo on special interest waste and that hurts people who are trying todo the right thing. This budget will hurt our economy, cost us jobs, and put the health and the safety of middle class and working families atrisk. It may be an improvement on the Tea Party budget that this housepassed several weeks ago, but that was not the standard we should applyhere.

This resolution still gives oil companies and special interests a pass while hurting American families. These are not the right choices for the American people. I urge my colleagues tooppose this misguided resolution. That would be the right thing to do.We can and must do better.