Darlene Hooley: “we will not find a Member on this side of the aisle who is not 100 percent supportive of winning this war against…”

“we will not find a Member on this side of the aisle who is not 100 percent supportive of winning this war against terrorism and bolstering our homeland security. However, we cannot forget our domestic priorities. Over the next 5 years, we will cut over $96 billion below what it costs to maintain these programs at their current level. For the next few minutes what I would like to do is put a human face on some of these funding cuts, and maybe people watching this debate back home will have a better understanding of what this budget does. For example, everybody knows that health care costs are skyrocketing on an annual basis. As a result, 40 million Americans cannot afford health insurance. That includes 9 million children. This budget pretends that these people do not exist. Compounding that situation is the fact that there are some programs that provide some minimal health care. For example, the rural health care program, it is cut by 41 percent. Telehealth programs are cut by 84 percent. Another problem is the freezing of funding for the Healthy Start program. It is for expectant mothers for prenatal care. I cannot think of any Member here who thinks that depriving mothers of prenatal care is something that we should be doing.”