Albert Russell Wynn: “Mr. Speaker, we have just heard described a pie-in-the-sky budget that can do just about everything but leap tall…”

“Mr. Speaker, we have just heard described a pie-in-the-sky budget that can do just about everything but leap tall buildings. The fact remains, Mr. Speaker, that the budget they are presenting increases the deficit. The people who claim to be deficit hawks, the people who claim to want to reduce the deficit and balance the budget, are in fact presenting us with a budget today which will increase the deficit by $40 billion in the course of the next 2 years. What they have done is front-loaded this budget with tax breaks for the wealthy. Those front-loaded tax breaks will kick in, and that will cause us to increase the deficit, also causing us to make deep cuts in Medicare. Yes, Mr. Speaker, this budget contains cuts in Medicare far deeper than the President's budget and far deeper than the coalition budget, which 40 newspapers said is the only true budget. With these deep cuts in Medicare, seniors will experience a loss of choice of their doctors. Seniors will experience higher out-of-pocket costs. Seniors will experience a reduction in the quality of their medical care. They will also lose the benefits of Medicaid and the protection for nursing home care. Mr. Speaker, this is a bad budget, a pie-in-the-sky budget that increases the deficit.”