Xavier Becerra: “Time and time again this year, rather than being in a posture to work with the other side of the aisle on issues that…”

“Time and time again this year, rather than being in a posture to work with the other side of the aisle on issues that really matter, the budget, the economy, Social Security, health care, corporate responsibility, growing unemployment, education, instead of working on those issues, we find ourselves again debating imprudent and ill-timed public policy. Why imprudent? Well, we were told by President Bush upon his assumption of office that we would have massive surpluses so we could afford tax cuts which are weighted towards the wealthy. Today we are in deficits just 2 years into this presidency. Persistent recession, we were told last year this will only last a few months, we will be out of this. But we continue to be mired in recession. Regarding homeland security needs, 2 years ago when the President assumed office, he could not have expected that we would need to devote so many of our resources to protect the homeland and to deal with terrorist threats abroad. Education, we have a President who is reneging on his promise to fund education, even under his own bill which he calls the No Child Left Behind Act. On health care, we all know the stories of seniors having to make decisions between their rent or their prescription drugs. Ill-timed and ill-conceived. The timing could not be worse. We are talking about the possibility of this country engaging in war which will cost tens of billions of dollars.”