mr. chairman , colleagues will remember the biblical story of the prophet nathan coming to the mighty king david .  nathan told david a story about a rich man who had many sheep but took the one little ewe lamb of a poor man to feed a visiting friend .  david flew into a rage at the rich man and proclaimed that anyone who should do such a thing deserved to be put to death for abusing his power and showing so little compassion .  then nathan turned to david and said , `` you are that man. '' this story should lead us to look into the mirror .  are we in danger of becoming `` that man '' ?  the republican budget removes support for housing , education , medicaid , community development , and small business lending .  it raises taxes on the poor .  and it does all this so the republicans can afford new tax cuts for the wealthiest among us .  if ever there were a moral issue before this congress , surely it is this one .  one might expect that these cuts would at least result in significant decreases in our deficits , but this is not the case .  we continue to face the worst-of-both-worlds scenario in which we suffer both devastating cuts and dangerous increases in the deficit .  we continue to borrow from our children to pay for tax cuts , the wars in iraq and afghanistan , and the president 's social security privatization .  as members of congress , we have a responsibility to be good stewards of the resources of our government , not simply to look at our immediate desires , but also to the needs of our children and our children 's children , including their need to be free of a crippling debt .  republicans claim to be the party of moral values , but their budget belies that claim .  the democratic alternative maintains current funding levels for our country 's critical domestic and security programs while also providing meaningful tax relief for middle-class americans .  furthermore , the democratic budget recognizes that fiscal responsibility is also a moral value by reinstating a real pay-as-you-go rule and by balancing our budget within 7 years .  the republican budget , on the other hand , continues to run up record deficits for as far as the eye can see .  mr. chairman , the budget process provides each party with a chance to put its money where its mouth is , to act on the rhetoric we all hear around here year round .  a budget is a statement of moral priorities .  may we do justice to those imperatives in the vote we cast tomorrow .  