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“EXPLANATION OF BUDGET PROCESS AND VOTES ON BUDGET PROPOSALS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Commerce was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H5266-H5267 on May 16, 1996.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
EXPLANATION OF BUDGET PROCESS AND VOTES ON BUDGET PROPOSALS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk a little bit about the budget process that has just passed, to put on the record the reasons I voted the way I did. I voted for the Coalition budget; I voted for the President's budget, both designed to get us to a balanced budget within a 6-year period, the same as the parameters set in the Republican leadership budget. I voted very strongly against the Republican budget.
Why did I vote for two and not the third? Well, basically the reason is, Mr. Speaker, because the first two at least recognized the importance of investment in the future for our young people, for our economic growth. Because those budgets, while they did balance in a 6-
year period, the same as the Republican leadership budget, at the same time those budgets did not attempt to give tax breaks to the wealthiest individuals in this country.
The coalition budget had no tax cuts in it, recognizing that we have contradictory goals if we are trying to reduce the revenues coming in by cutting taxes and at the same time balancing the budget.
The President's budget, while it did have a tax cut in it, was a limited tax cut targeted for middle income working families and low income working families.
Neither of these budgets tried to take it out of the hide of low-
income working people, such as the Republican leadership budget did, particularly because the Republican leadership budget sought to greatly reduce the earned income tax credit. That is the tax cut that was greatly expanded only 2 years ago, that gives tax relief to working families earning under $26,000 a year.
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I was also concerned because the Republican leadership budget would cut education again, and that is a battle we had just fought. It would eliminate the Department of Commerce. If anyone can tell me why, at a time when we have got a department that is actually generating jobs, generating contracts, has brought in $80 billion of contracts and developed a national export strategy for the first time, why we seek to eliminate it. It seems to me it is simply a matter of ideology, and that is not a satisfactory reason.
I was also concerned, Mr. Speaker, because of the cuts that are proposed in Medicare and Medicaid. I have great problems in the Republican budget with the assumption of balanced billing. In other words, a senior citizen may now be charged more by the provider and the senior will be billed directly for that, as opposed to the senior paying out of pocket being limited, as is presently the law.
I am concerned about the cuts in Medicaid, because I think what that is going to mean is that it will go to the States in a block grant, but not satisfactorily enough to meet the needs. At the same time the needs will expand, the funds will decrease.
Those are a lot of the reasons, Mr. Speaker, that I voted against the Republican budget but for the coalition and President's budget. I have heard a lot of talk, Mr. Speaker, about the need to, and certainly we all agree that there is a need to make sure that our young people are not burdened by debt. At the same time, there is also a compelling need to make sure they are not burdened by ignorance through lack of educational opportunities.
Mr. Speaker, there is a compelling need to make sure that our young people are not burdened by lack of opportunity because we are not investing in our economy. There is a compelling need to make sure that our young people are not burdened by the problems of crime because we are not investing adequately enough in crime control and putting police officers on the street. There is a compelling need to make sure that our young people have a future, and you have to invest in order to make that future.
So I have thought that the two budgets that I did vote for balanced the budget over 6 years, what they did was to seek to keep those domestic investments up and growing, and at the same time, to reach that goal of a balanced budget within a 6-year period.
One concern I have, Mr. Speaker, is that none of these budgets adequately addresses the need of domestic infrastructure investment, that none of these budgets addresses the need to increase the growth rate in this country. The problem is that, if you accept the growth rate in any of the budgets, Republican or Democrat, and say that that is all we are going to grow, that is a ticket to economic stagnation over a period of time.
However, having said that, certainly the coalition budget and the President's budget, I felt, certainly offered much more satisfactory blueprints for the future than the Republican leadership budget. So I offer that as my explanation of why I voted the way I did, and why I am going to keep pressing for domestic investment so that our economy can grow.
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