Rick Allen: “Mr. Chairman, given the history of the last few years, there is no reason to take what the Republican minority is saying…”

“Mr. Chairman, given the history of the last few years, there is no reason to take what the Republican minority is saying seriously. And I say that because the history of the last 6 years has been to prove that people who don't believe in government don't run it well. It is also true that past Republican budgets have never made permanent the President's tax cuts. So there is rank hypocrisy to suggest that there is a tax increase embedded in this one when there was a similar increase embedded in past Republican budgets. But, beyond that, what we are really talking about is criticism from a party which ran up $3 trillion in the Federal debt over the last few years; and they have done that, frankly, by putting their tax cuts for the richest people in the country on a credit card. Only they don't intend to pay the credit card. They intend our children and grandchildren to pay back the credit card with $3 trillion of additional Federal debt. Now, we could go on, on that subject, but the bottom line is budgets are about priorities; and the Democratic priorities in this budget are very, very different from what the administration and the Republicans have done before. For example, clean water. In my home State of Maine, we value the environment. A good environment is absolutely essential to the health of our economy, because so many people come to me precisely because we have clean air and clean water and a beautiful place to visit.”