John W. Olver: “Mr. Chairman, with about 10 legislative weeks left in the 104th Congress, I think it is a good time to examine the…”

“Mr. Chairman, with about 10 legislative weeks left in the 104th Congress, I think it is a good time to examine the priorities of the new majority. The Republicans have relentlessly attacked education and health care and environmental protection, energy conservation, crime control. The minimum wage remains unlivable, corporate welfare unstoppable. The deficit is going to go up each of the next 2 years under the plan that was adopted last night while taxes are deliberately increased on working families who earn under $25,000 a year. But spending on unrequested and unneeded weapons systems is off the charts: billions of dollars for new missile defense systems to defend against hypothetical or imagined enemies that do not exist, millions for further development of the B-2 bomber, many millions more for other aircraft and hardware the Pentagon says it does not need to defend either our shores or our interests. This defense budget is an utter perverse reading of the peace dividend the end of the cold war was supposed to produce. It makes you wonder who really wants to balance the budget. Makes you wonder who is really willing to make tough choices of shared sacrifice. Both the President's budget and the coalition budget are fair and more human, more honest, more realistic plans to balance the budget in 6 years.”