Blake Moore: “I could just sit down and say I agree with everything that the gentleman has said, but I want to add my voice to this…”

“I could just sit down and say I agree with everything that the gentleman has said, but I want to add my voice to this debate and rise to support the Democratic motion to instruct conferees. As Mr. Van Hollen has said, there are provisions in the Senate version that are very, very worthy of our adopting. There is the reserve fund on paid sick leave, and it also rejects the House provision on Medicare premium support, the vouchers. I have been a member of this Budget Committee for over 5 years, and I can tell you that, while I have an appetite for leftovers, this has just been warmed over too many times. This budget is just another variation of the same themes that we have seen in the past several years. What is this thing? The majority party has recommitted themselves to benefit the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans while balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. Now, I know there are many people--unfortunately, on both sides of the aisle--who are not all that concerned about the poor. They figure that the poor have done this to themselves; but what has the middle class done to deserve being hollowed even more while we provide tax breaks for the wealthiest two-tenths of 1 percent? What have hard-working men and women and cities and mayors all over this country done so that we just ignore infrastructure improvements, ignore devolving money to the States, all in the name of providing tax breaks for the richest of the rich?…”