Bob Franks: “Mr. Chairman, the measure before us is not simply about thousands of individual numbers. It is not about economic…”

“Mr. Chairman, the measure before us is not simply about thousands of individual numbers. It is not about economic assumptions. It is not about green eyeshades and sharp leaded pencils. Budgets are about people. Budgets are about ideas. Mr. Chairman, the budget of the Federal Government speaks to who we are as a country. It looks at our hopes and our aspirations, our dreams. It looks at our challenges and our problems. It looks at our opportunities. But no budget, Mr. Chairman, exists in a vacuum. A budget is developed against the backdrop of the environment that we find today. As family across this country are looking at their own economic circumstances, they are saying very clearly that America can and must do better. While the economy may be showing signs of improvement for some, many families are still struggling. Tens of thousands of workers continue to lose their jobs, many the victims of corporate downsizing. In fact, between June of 1994 and June of 1995, fully half the major corporations in the United States eliminated jobs, less than a third of the workers who lost their full-time jobs found new jobs that paid as much money. On average, workers who lost their jobs had to settle for jobs that paid 8.2 percent less. And for dislocated workers between the ages of 45 and 55, their incomes declined by fully 14 percent. We have watched high-paying manufacturing jobs continue to disappear at an alarming rate.”