Steny Hoyer: “Mr. Speaker, if the American people ever wondered how so-called compassionate conservatives define shared sacrifice, I…”

“Mr. Speaker, if the American people ever wondered how so-called compassionate conservatives define shared sacrifice, I hope they are watching the debate today. With our Nation battling the evil of terrorism, both at home and abroad, with the Federal Government on course to run a deficit outside of Social Security of $314 billion and with the Republican Party plundering our Social Security surpluses in direct violation of its own pledge not to do so, now, now is the time our friends in the GOP believe to bestow billions upon billions of dollars on a few thousand Americans. This is not about all Americans. This is about the wealthiest Americans, the billionaires in our country, by permanently repealing the estate tax, a reaffirmation of their leave-no-heir-behind philosophy. Yet we cannot get a vote on increasing the minimum wage. Yet congressional Republicans just passed welfare legislation that would force mothers of young children to double their work week. Yet congressional Republicans drag their feet on extending unemployment benefits for thousands of Americans who lost their jobs after September 11, and at the very same time, they try to give Enron and a handful of other corporations billions of dollars out of the Federal Treasury. The plight of the wealthy has always been the top of the GOP agenda; and with today's vote, the Republican Party reality ought to rename itself the 'free lunch' party.”