On the recordMarch 25, 2015
I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, it is bad enough that the Republican budget uses games and gimmicks that would make Enron accountants blush with respect to their basic budget. It is not just me who says that. People, independent observers from all over the country have said that. USA Today is not a partisan newspaper. Here is what they said about the Republican budget quackery: But ``pretend'' is the operative word because the Republicans supposed path to balance is fanciful at best. That is USA Today. Now, why do they say that? They say that because Republicans claim in the ninth and tenth years of their budget that they have this balance, but their budget depends on revenue from the Affordable Care Act. That is the ObamaCare that they say they are repealing. It depends on savings from the Affordable Care Act. It assumes that the costs of the tax cuts that this body is enacting by the day--for corporations and very wealthy individuals, mostly--aren't happening; right? That is a whole different universe. In fact, as we heard today, they just passed, worked on a bill in the Committee on Ways and Means, they are marking it up, $280 billion more to the deficit for the benefit of 5,500 American families, 75 percent of whom have $20 million-plus estates. So their budget accounting is all wrong. In my view, their priorities and values are all wrong, too.…
