Wendy Sherman: “before we pass a series of tax cuts totaling over $2 trillion, we need to know what we can afford. The Republican plan…”

“before we pass a series of tax cuts totaling over $2 trillion, we need to know what we can afford. The Republican plan is based on unreliable projections, no budget resolution, no administration budget. Mr. Speaker, this is what a budget for the Federal Government looks like; yet what we have been given by the administration is this. Scarcely more than a long political pamphlet. In fact, it is skimpy compared to the budget of the State of Rhode Island. Mr. Speaker, perhaps the fuzziest of fuzzy math is to provide no numbers at all. My colleagues, the President stood where the Speaker stands now and asked us to think of a struggling unmarried waitress with two kids. Yet most waitresses, raising two children, get nothing under the President's plan. Not even a one cent insult tip is left on the table. The Democratic substitute provides such waitresses with $539 and leaves $1.5 trillion more to pay off the national debt by 2008. Let us stand up for Social Security, Medicare, and fiscal responsibility, and vote for the Democratic substitute.”