WASHINGTON, DC - Ways and Means Ranking Member Sander Levin (D-MI) today joined his Democratic colleagues in the House in unanimous opposition to the Republican 2012 budget, which ends Medicare while cutting taxes for the very wealthiest. Only four Republicans voted against the measure. In a floor statement Thursday evening, Rep. Levin made the following remarks about the GOP budget:
“We do not need to tear up what America has done in the past in order to build for the future. We should not confront present and future problems, including the nation's deficit, as we must, by repealing America's past.
“The Republican budget tries to tear up and repeal 75 years of American experience and the supreme example is Medicare. It tears it up. It repeals it. And contrary to what we have heard today, they would not save Medicare, but end it. They would not change it, but they would end it. Our nation would be a different nation without it. Millions today would be less healthy without Medicare.
“One of my constituents wrote to me recently to say Medicare saved her life and her life savings when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And there are tens of thousands of people like her in this country.
“And what the Republicans want to do is to give seniors a voucher for health care -- an underfunded voucher for 10 years. It would double health care costs for seniors. A voucher that in 20 years would pay only a third of senior health care costs. There's no place to hide for anyone who votes for the Republican budget.
“And what happens with the savings? Tax cuts for the wealthy. The average income of the bottom 90 percent of the families in America has fallen in the last decade. The opposite is true for the wealthy.
“The top 1 percent have seen their incomes climb by more than a quarter of a million dollars.
“If what we have built in our nation needs to be adjusted, fix it, don't destroy it. We must address the deficit without deepening deficits and availability for our senior citizens of jobs, health care and education.
“The choice today could not be more decisive. A vote against the Republican budget is a vote for basic American values. Vote no. I yield back."
Rep. Levin’s floor statement can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qZnGa0FuDE
