Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment and in opposition of the underlying bill.

Just last week we finished the Fiscal Year 2006 budget process, which cut $50 billion from Medicare, Medicaid, Student Loans and other programs, gave away $70 billion in tax cuts for wealthy Americans, and added approximately $20 billion to the deficit.

Today, the Republicans are at it again: slashing $162 billion in critical domestic health care, education and veterans programs in order to give away $228 Billion away in tax cuts for the wealthy over the next five years. 

This budget reaffirms the Republican’s ongoing commitment to take from the needy and give to the greedy!

If you kicked this budget in the heart, you’d break your toe!

The Republicans’ budget will be disastrous to our nation’s healthcare system. It:
• Cuts Medicare by $105 billion over 10 years and
• Cuts Medicaid by $43 billion over 10 years.
• Cuts funding for research at National Institutes of Health; and it
• Cuts critical prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

It will leave thousands of children behind with its dramatic cuts to education:
• This budget cuts funding for the Department of Education by $2.2 billion below the 2006 level.
• It eliminates 42 education programs, including: 
o vocational education programs and
o The Safe and Drug-Free Schools program

What this budget is all about is giving $228 Billion away in tax cuts and cutting programs like health, education, and veterans’ programs by $162 billion over the next five years. It is about offering comfort to the comfortable in the form of massive tax cuts financed by cuts from the most vulnerable segments of our society – the poor, the aged, and the sick.

I urge my colleagues to vote NO on the Republican Budget and Yes on the Democratic Substitute. It is time to get our nation’s priorities in order.