This year’s budget includes over $70 billion in tax cuts.  It’s about priorities.  Tax cuts are being provided for the wealthy while important programs that directly impact the poor, the disabled, and the elderly are being slashed. 

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce was directed to cut at least $10 billion directly from Medicaid, a program which provides critical health care services for low-income children, the elderly, and the disabled.  Recent numbers indicate that there are 717,000 Medicaid recipients in Arkansas, or one in five people.  Over half of Arkansas’s children are on Medicaid or have received Medicaid services this year and eight out of ten seniors in Arkansas nursing homes are on Medicaid.  

The Committee on Education and the Workforce has proposed $14.3 billion in cuts, the largest cut the federal student aid program has ever seen.  These proposed cuts were made by raising the student loan interest rate cap, raising taxes on student loans, and raising interest rates on consolidation loans.  According to the United States Department of Education, over 58,000 people in Arkansas with student loans will be adversely affected.   

The House Agriculture Committee has cut $3.7 billion, including $844 million from food stamps, a $734 million reduction in conservation programs, over $1 billion from Farm Commodity Support Programs, and $620 million in Rural Development Programs.  With this summer’s drought and the devastation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, this is simply not the time to be cutting critical funding for our farm families who produce our nation’s food and fiber.   

America subscribes to a system of government of the people, by the people, and for the people.   Our first and foremost responsibility is to take care of and respond to the needs of our citizens.  It is our responsibility, as lawmakers and citizens, to help those who need it most.  We must not slash funding for programs that directly affect our nation’s poor, the disabled, and the elderly while providing $70 billion in tax cuts to our nation’s wealthiest citizens.  As your Representative in the United States Congress, I will always side with the hard-working families of Arkansas.

“A pillar of the modern day civil rights movement, Rosa Parks’s courageous spirit and pointed expression of non-violence paved the way for the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act,” said Ross.  “Brilliant in its simplicity, the impact of Rosa Parks’s refusal to relinquish her seat to a white passenger will continue to be felt for generations to come.  Rosa Parks is truly a legend and will be deeply missed, but her spirit and her legacy will live on forever in the multitude of lives that were changed by her bold decision on that bus.  Her gesture transformed the South and America in a positive way by promoting actions that can lead to historic change through non-violence.  Our nation will forever be indebted to Rosa Parks for leading our nation on the path to becoming a beacon of liberty and justice for the entire world to see.” 

Rosa Parks passed away last week in Detroit at the age of 92.  An Alabama native, Parks is credited as being the mother of the modern civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger in 1955.

The United Nations Charter explicitly states that all United Nations members, including Israel, are autonomous nations among equals.  The United Nations has the authority to take appropriate recourse anytime the safety of a United Nations member is in jeopardy. 

“President Ahmadinejad’s assertion that Israel should be ‘wiped off the map,’ and subsequent threat to use violence against Israel and members of the international community that support Israel is reprehensible,” said Ross.  “I join my colleagues in calling on the United Nations to swiftly and appropriately use their authority to condemn Iran for their blatant disrespect of international law.  Violations of international law and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons mandate that the United Nations is resolute in their commitment to condemning atrocious acts that put our world at risk for terrorist attacks.” 

Recently, Ross voted in favor of H Res 523, which condemned President Ahmadinejad’s threats against Israel.  Additionally, Ross is a co-sponsor of the Iran Freedom Support Act, legislation which would hold the current regime in Iran accountable for its development of weapons of mass destruction and supports a transition to democracy in Iran.