Angie Craig: “I want to make some opening observations about this historic constitutional amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 1, that…”

“I want to make some opening observations about this historic constitutional amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 1, that we have on the floor this evening and on which we have started debate. I have always voted for Head Start, and I have always voted for Women, Infants and Children. Those are very important programs for our country. I am also one who says those programs have to be funded within the context of a balanced budget. I am standing here beside this 6-foot tall stack of budget documents, what I call the budgets of the era of liberalism. This is when America said that poor people ought to be cared for, and unprecedented in the world, this Nation poured out its riches to the poor. Mr. President, 28 years of budgets are represented here, and benefits resulted from some of what was in them. We started the WIC program. We started Head Start in these budgets. They were funded last year and will continue to be funded. But what happened along the way? People did not seem to get better. People seemed to get poorer.”