Louise Slaughter: “I once said that budgets are moral documents. They reflect our choices, our priorities and they most clearly define our…”

“I once said that budgets are moral documents. They reflect our choices, our priorities and they most clearly define our values, as a government and as a Nation. Today's 5-year budget reconciliation is no different, and that is exactly why the Republicans in the House are worried. They are worried that the American people will see that they have sold out our American values. So it should come as no surprise that it has taken a week of intraparty fighting in the Republican Conference and one false start to get the bill to the floor. Why? Because they cannot muster the votes in their own party to get this budget passed. One of my Republican colleagues captured it best in yesterday's CQ Daily when he said, ``If the Republican Party cannot stand for responsible spending, then we stand for nothing at all.'' I agree with him on that point; and as this Republican leadership continues to flail and flounder, there can be only one conclusion drawn from this budget reconciliation, that this majority has come to stand for nothing at all, except for making the rich richer while the rest of America pays the bill. Because at its core, that is what this budget does, and it is what the budget was intentionally designed to do, cut vital programs and increase the national debt in order to create tax cuts for the rich and the superrich.…”