Mr. Speaker, tonight the House leadership is making a second attempt at passing its 2005 budget reconciliation bill.   This is still the wrong bill at the wrong time for America, and I will oppose it.
 
We have heard a host of arguments from the majority in support of this bill, which will cut vital  federal programs by approximately $50 billion over five years.  Some have made the case that higher deficits hurt our nation’s economy.  I agree, but although this bill is titled “The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005,” it will do nothing to ease our deficit situation.   

HR 4241 is part of a larger strategy by the House leadership resolution that calls for a total of $106 billion in additional tax cuts.   This strategy includes $70 billion in reconciled tax cuts and $36 billion in unreconciled tax cuts.  The spending cuts in this bill are the initial step. The majority intends to follow tonight’s vote with a tax cut bill. After the tax cuts are passed and in place, there will no funds available to pay for Hurricane relief.  In the end, the House leadership’s charade will not reduce the deficit; it will make the deficit even larger than it is today.
  
In the weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the land and the lives of so many on the Gulf Coast, many lawmakers said they had a newfound understanding of the extent and depth of poverty in America.  They also said that the photographs from New Orleans, particularly those taken at the Superdome and the Convention Center, had demonstrated that government does have an important role in lifting Americans out of poverty.   There seemed to be bipartisan support for authentic, meaningful approaches to addressing the plight of poor Americans.  I would hope that this sentiment still remains.  But if it does, it is not evident in the majority’s reconciliation bill that is on the House floor tonight.

This bill reduces access to health care for the poor.  It contains $11.9 billion in cuts to Medicaid, including cuts of $8.8 billion that are borne by low-income beneficiaries through higher cost-sharing and new premiums. It also gives the states the green light to eliminate periodic health care examinations and the treatment of conditions picked up by those examinations for many of America’s neediest children.  Maryland’s Medicaid rolls cover 430,000 children and health services for 90,000 of them will be jeopardized by this provision. Approximately $2.5 billion of the Medicaid cuts will affect elderly Americans, who will lose access to nursing home care through tougher restrictions on eligibility. 
 
This bill reduces access to higher education.  It contains $14.3 billion in reductions to federal student loan programs over five years, by increasing the interest rates and imposing a new 1% origination fee on all loans.
 

This bill will hurt many families who rely on child support payments. It reduces the federal match for child support administrative costs from 66 percent to 50 percent, eliminating $4.9 billion in help for the states to enforce  child support orders.  The majority, which claims to want to help our states, is shifting the cost of enforcement to them. It will not save money in the long run, and it will hurt struggling single parent families across America. 

As a result of this bill, fewer children in foster care will be eligible for payments, and $577 million will be cut from these funds.   This bill will also limit food stamp eligibility to only those households who are receiving cash assistance through TANF, and requires that legal permanent residents live here for seven years, rather than the current five years, before they can receive food stamps.  The result will be $844 million less in food stamp assistance to low-income families. 

The legislation before us is also making it harder for some of the most disadvantaged Americans, those who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) to receive assistance.   It imposes an extra level of review for certain disability determinations and for those who are found eligible after lengthy delays, this bill requires that retroactive payments are spread out over a longer period of time, for a total savings of $732 million. 

So in the name of paying for Hurricane relief, we cut funding for the programs that would help the neediest Americans, including many of the Gulf Coast citizens who were affected by that disaster.  

At this time of economic uncertainty for our country, the so-called “Deficit Reduction Act” places the burden on the shoulders of the American families least able to carry it.  It is clear that this legislation will make painful cuts, and when combined with the tax legislation will increase deficit problems that we face, and so I must vote against it.