Bill Pascrell: “over the past few weeks, the Republican leadership has taken their year of budgetary gimmicks to a new level, and I want…”

“over the past few weeks, the Republican leadership has taken their year of budgetary gimmicks to a new level, and I want to address that. Not only have they declared the Census an emergency, something we have been doing through the centuries, not only have they delayed funding for critical medical research at the National Institutes of Health, they tried to create a 13th month in the year and put off payments that lower-income working families receive under the Earned Income Tax Credit. Not only have they put on the floor an appropriation bill that has abandoned our commitment to reduce class size in our schools, a commitment which we started in the 1999 budget to eliminate immunization for 300 kids and gutted funding to hire teachers for disadvantaged students, not only have they been saying that they are the great protectors of Social Security and Social Security surpluses, while their own Congress Budget Office numbers which they have demanded the House use say the exact opposite, that all would have been bad enough, now they are telling us they are doing the responsible thing. They have decided to hold up a penny and say, of course we can cut one penny out of every dollar we spend. One percent they say. That is just wasted money. They have abandoned apparently their idea of an $800 billion tax cut, so-called tax cut. Why? It did not resonate with the people of America. The reply of the leadership has been, Most people don't pay taxes.…”