Budget Committee RSS Articles

Obama’s dereliction of duty

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 18:08:00 GMT

President Obama has delivered the last budget of his term. Three of the four, including this one, were submitted late, shattering the previous record for an administration. Each of the four proposed more than $1 trillion in higher taxes on hard-working families and businesses, along with trillions in new spending and borrowing instead of a real strategy for growth and jobs. And — most disappointing of all — none of the four offered a credible plan to lift the crushing burden of debt, thus committing current and future generations to diminished prosperity and a nation in decline.

Although the White House claims to include $4 trillion in deficit reduction, the president’s budget actually contains virtually no credible deficit reduction at all. Under his plan, the government is projected to borrow $11.2 trillion over the next 10 years. This is roughly the same amount of debt we are expected to incur under realistic projections of current policy. The budget does not change our debt trajectory.

Instead, the president has used a series of gimmicks to create the illusion of fiscal responsibility. He exploits the winding-down of overseas combat operations to claim almost $1 trillion in “savings” over 10 years — money that was never requested by our military and was never going to be spent. Rather than propose actual spending cuts, his budget takes credit for $2 trillion in spending cuts that have already been signed into law. Further, it suggests replacing half of those cuts with a tax hike. When it comes to measuring tax rates, Pell grants and Medicare, his budget adjusts the starting line to satisfy his finish line.

Where some had hoped that President Obama might take some responsibility for breaking his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term, he has offered nothing but the same old excuses. Given the fallen expectations for this president, his latest broken promise was no surprise to the millions of Americans who have seen great hope turn to great cynicism.

We see serious danger in shrugging off the president’s dereliction of duty — a danger compounded by Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate, who have refused to offer any budget at all for more than 1,000 days. The unsustainable growth of government spending is pushing the nation ever closer to a debt-fueled economic crisis.

For four straight years, the federal government’s budget deficit has eclipsed $1 trillion. The national debt now exceeds the size of the U.S. economy. Unable to escape the merciless math, President Obama’s budget concedes (if you read the fine print) that, in the years ahead, the nation’s “fiscal position gradually deteriorates.” This admission is reminiscent of Ernest Hemingway’s explanation of how one goes bankrupt: “Gradually, then suddenly.”

Sluggish growth, stagnant wages and widespread joblessness have imperiled the economic security of millions of Americans. The president’s health-care law, which hands control of Medicare to a board of unaccountable bureaucrats in Washington, jeopardizes the health and retirement security of millions of seniors. And deep reductions in our armed forces, crowded out by entitlement spending and interest on the debt, could put the national security of all Americans at risk.

For our part, we refuse to accept the diminished future outlined by President Obama’s budget. A growing bipartisan consensus recognizes the core elements our country needs: responsible spending restraint; a repaired safety net; reforms that ensure real health and retirement security; and a simplified tax code oriented toward growth.

Achieving fiscal sanity will take time. It will not happen overnight. But while reforms can and should be phased in gradually and carefully, there can be no delaying the first step in the process, which is for both sides to come forward with honest plans to change the debt course in a real and meaningful way.

President Obama and his party’s leaders have taken the opposite approach. In dealing with the most predictable economic crisis in our nation’s history, they have decided to duck behind an empty promise and hope that those they serve don’t notice.

The good news, of course, is that citizens are noticing, and they will have the final say. The American people demand leaders that take seriously their legal and moral obligations to put forward credible budget plans. In the House and Senate budget committees, we will continue to work with our colleagues — from both parties where possible — to advance bold solutions that lift our crushing burden of debt and ensure a future of opportunity, growth and prosperity.

If this president refuses to lead, the American people will be given an opportunity to chart a new way forward to ensure a new era of prosperity, for this generation and for generations to come.

Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, is the ranking member on the Senate Committee on the Budget. Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin’s 1st District, is chairman of the House Committee on the Budget.

View online at The Washington Post

House Budget Committee Hearing: The President’s Fiscal Year 2013 Revenue and Economic Policy Proposals

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Welcome all, to this important hearing.

I’d like to thank Secretary Geithner for joining us. This is your second hearing today and your fourth this week.

We know that defending this budget is no easy task, so we appreciate your time.

Mr. Secretary, it’s pretty well known that one of your favorite sayings is “plan beats no plan.”

It’s a phrase you used often during the financial crisis to describe the need for policymakers to plan for every contingency in order to stay ahead of events.

I remember those days well.

We had you… your predecessor at Treasury… and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve… all coming here to warn us about the impending collapse of the U.S. economy.

Because that crisis took us by surprise, the legislation that resulted was ugly.

But the circumstances could not be more different today.

Back then, we faced a crisis that very few people saw coming. Today, we are facing the most predictable crisis in our nation’s history.

And yet, for the fourth year in a row, you’ve brought us this.

This, Mr. Secretary, is no plan. It is no plan to restrain spending. It is no plan to grow the economy. And most of all, it is no plan to save the nation from the debt-fueled economic disaster before us.

If plan beats no plan, then why has the President once again decided to duck from the drivers of our debt?

Why has he once again given us broken promises instead of leadership – and excuses instead of accountability?

Instead of cooperation where agreement is possible, why have we seen the President turn his back on bipartisan solutions?

And why has he decided to base his re-election strategy on dividing Americans for political gain?

After House Republicans put forward serious solutions in our budget last year, the President had an opportunity to advance plans for meeting our challenges.

In fact, there is growing bipartisan consensus for the reforms that are needed – even on contentious issues like entitlement spending and tax reform.

Reforms based on premium support, which would strengthen Medicare by introducing choice and competition, have a bipartisan history.

This history dates back to the Breaux-Thomas commission under President Clinton… it continues with the work done by Alice Rivlin and Pete Domenici at the Bipartisan Policy Center… and it includes my cooperation with Sen. Ron Wyden to put forward a bipartisan option for saving and strengthening the Medicare guarantee.

And fundamental tax reform also has a bipartisan history. In 1986, we did fundamental tax reform that lowered rates and broadened the base.

The congressional sponsors of that bill? None other than Dick Gephardt and Bill Bradley.

So I would argue that this is not a Left vs. Right issue. This is about those who are willing to tell people the truth about our nation’s enormous challenges, and those who continue to duck from those challenges.

This budget takes the latter approach.

It represents a very clear threat to the health and retirement security of America’s seniors… it threatens our prosperity by fueling the growth of government with ever-higher taxes… and it commits our children and grandchildren to a diminished future.

Secretary Geithner, you would probably be the first to acknowledge that having no plan is itself a plan.

It is a plan for failure. Having no plan as a nation means planning for decline.

The point of this hearing is to find out why that kind of future for our country is apparently acceptable to your administration.

I hope your testimony can provide the answers – and the accountability – that the American people deserve.

With that, I yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Van Hollen.

Defending the Indefensible: A Tough Day for the President’s Budget

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:00:00 GMT

Earlier today, the House Budget Committee examined the President’s Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, receiving testimony from Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Jeffrey Zients.

Chairman Paul Ryan Dismantles the President’s Misleading Claims

WATCH

The President continues to assert that policy changes proposed in his budget will result in $4 trillion in deficit reduction. The claim is simply false. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan unpacks the false claims and the gimmicks used to arrive at that number – revealing a deep divide between reality and the Administration’s rhetoric.

The President’s Budget Balances….Never

WATCH

OMB Director Contradicts the Administration’s Arguments before the Supreme Court

WATCH

OMB Acting Director Zients contradicts the Administration’s argument before the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the President’s health care law. The Administration claims the power to impose an unprecedented federal mandate to purchase government-approved health insurance if the enforcement mechanism is a tax. In testimony before the House Budget Committee, OMB Director Zients argues the opposite, claiming the enforcement mechanism is not a tax.

To learn more:

House Budget Committee Hearing on the President’s FY2013 Budget

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Welcome all, to this important hearing.

I’d like to thank our witness today, Mr. Zients, for coming to us under difficult circumstances.

With the departure of Mr. Lew from OMB just last month, we understand that you are testifying on short notice, and we recognize the difficulty of that.

And unfortunately, your job is even more difficult than usual – you are in the position of having to defend a budget that essentially dodges the most difficult challenges our country faces.

The New York Times has reported that this budget is, quote, “more a platform for the president’s re-election campaign than a legislative proposal.” After a careful review, it’s hard to disagree.

The Associated Press has reported – accurately in my view – that this budget, quote, “[takes] a pass on reining in government growth.”

Instead, it leaves the drivers of our debt – namely, the unsustainable growth of entitlement spending – quote, “largely unchecked.”

It takes a pass on real reform, even though the looming bankruptcy of these programs threatens to end the guarantee of security they provide for our nation’s seniors.

And it breaks the President’s promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term. As ABC News reported, this budget “does not come close.”

We’ve heard a lot of excuses from this administration for why the President broke his promise. But what we haven’t heard is any semblance of accountability.

To the best of my knowledge, no one in the White House has taken responsibility for this failure.

Instead, we’ve gotten a blame game that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Jack Lew, your former boss, claimed that the reason Senate Democrats haven’t passed a budget in over 1,000 days is that the Republicans have threatened to filibuster.

This is simply false. As Mr. Lew surely knows, budget resolutions cannot be filibustered. They can be passed with a simple majority.

The real source of dysfunction in the Senate comes from members of the President’s own party, who have been unwilling – for almost three years now – to go on record in support of his budgets, or to pass budgets of their own.

More to the point, it wasn’t so long ago that the President’s party held total control of the White House and both branches of Congress – during which time his agenda was enacted in near totality:

massive new spending and taxes
the creation of new, open-ended entitlements
a regulatory onslaught that hurt the economy
and trillions of dollars in new debt.

Even after all this, the new House Majority provided him with an opportunity to make good on his promise – to put aside the “chronic avoidance of tough decisions” that he once lamented.

We were – and we remain – eager to work with the President to stop spending money we don’t have… to reform government programs that aren’t delivering on their promises… and to enact pro-growth policies that raise revenue by getting our economy moving again.

Yet, instead of working with us, the President has demonized our ideas to save and strengthen health and retirement security programs.

He fought to keep his reckless spending spree going.

And he continues to insist on taking more money from hardworking Americans – not to reduce the debt, but to fuel his ever-higher spending.

The President’s ongoing refusal to advance serious solutions to our nation’s fiscal challenges represents a stunning dereliction of duty.

But I haven’t given up hope. I remain committed to working with my colleagues of both parties wherever common ground can be reached.

There is a growing bipartisan consensus for the reforms that are needed. But this consensus cannot succeed as long as the President of the United States remains on the outside looking in.

Unfortunately, that’s where he stands today. And my hope is that this hearing can shed some light on why.

Mr. Zients, we look forward to your testimony, but we do not envy your predicament. This unserious budget raises some very serious questions, and the American people deserve answers.

With that, I yield to the Ranking Member, Mr. Van Hollen.

President's Budget Charts Path to Debt and Decline

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

The President has not merely ducked from our fiscal and economic challenges, but—with his fourth straight budget flop—he has advanced policies that dangerously accelerate the crisis before us. His gimmick-filled budget fails to reduce the fast-rising debt, permanently entrenches unsustainable levels of government spending, and erects new barriers to upward mobility. His plan stifles economic growth, threatens the health and retirement security of millions of Americans, and commits the next generation to a diminished future.

Spends Too Much: $47 Trillion In Ten Years — A Net Increase Over Current Projections

After four straight years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits (breaking his promise to cut the deficit in half), President Obama’s budget worsens our fiscal crisis and speeds the country to bankruptcy. Three years after the passage of the President’s trillion-dollar spending stimulus, this gimmick-filled budget calls for more wasteful spending taken from workers’ paychecks or borrowed from abroad. The massive spending increases are greater than the few proposed spending reductions.

Spending in FY13: $3.8 trillion

Spending in FY22: $5.8 trillion

Increased spending concealed through gimmicks: $1.5 trillion

Total government spending over the next ten years: $47 trillion

Taxes Too Much: $1.9 Trillion In New Taxes

The President’s budget imposes a heavy cost for its commitment to intrusive government—diminishing economic opportunity by imposing the largest tax hike in history. Taking trillions more tax dollars from hardworking American families will further depress wages and destroy jobs at a time when millions of Americans remain out of work. In total, this budget imposes $1.9 trillion in new taxes on families, small businesses, and job creators—all to fund wasteful Washington spending.

Income tax hike: $1.4 trillion

Death tax hike: $143 billion

Other tax increases: $340 billion

Borrows Too Much: $11 Trillion Added To The Debt

Under President Obama’s watch, the federal government’s total debt has surpassed the size of the economy—undermining job creation today and threatening a debt crisis tomorrow. The President’s budget ignores the drivers of our debt, bringing America perilously close to a European-style crisis:

Deficit in FY12: $1.3 trillion	Deficit in FY13: $901 billion	Deficit in FY22: $704 billion
Gross debt accumulated during President's first term: $6.4 trillion
Gross debt at the end of FY22: $25.9 trillion
Annual interest payments on the debt by FY22: nearly $1 trillion

Gimmicks, Tricks and Broken Promises

The President’s meager deficit-reduction claims seek to take credit for over $2 trillion in savings already in law and the exploitation of discredited budget gimmicks, including almost $1 trillion in “savings” from money that was never requested and never to be spent in Iraq and Afghanistan.

By failing to put forward long-overdue reforms, his budget allows Social Security to fall into bankruptcy (imposing an across-the-board 23 percent cut on seniors) and gives unaccountable government bureaucrats control over cutting Medicare in ways that would result in denied care for seniors. No credible action is taken to lift the crushing burden of debt. This President’s empty promises are quickly becoming broken promises for millions of Americans.

For supplemental information from the House Budget Committee on the tax and spending increases in the President’s FY2013 budget request click here.

Ryan: President’s Budget Ensures Debt Crisis and Decline

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

WASHINGTON – Earlier today, President Obama introduced his Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, calling for record levels of spending increases, tax hikes, and debt. The President’s budget breaks his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, and it breaks his obligation to all Americans to confront the nation’s spending-driven debt crisis.

In response to the President’s failure of leadership, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin issued the following statement:

“President Obama’s irresponsible budget is a recipe for a debt crisis and the decline of America. His refusal to honestly confront our nation’s most pressing challenges does real harm to the economic security of millions of American families. The $1.9 trillion tax increase proposed in his budget will make it harder for businesses to create jobs and for workers to spur economic growth.

“This budget does nothing to prevent the bankruptcy of critical programs, threatening the health and retirement security of current and future seniors. Worse, it continues the President’s policy of letting an unaccountable board of bureaucrats cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for seniors. The broken promises and recycled gimmicks contained in this budget have dramatically widened this President’s growing credibility deficit.

“Our families, seniors, children and grandchildren deserve better than this reckless budget and this dismal failure of leadership. As Chairman of the House Budget Committee, I will continue to work with my colleagues – from both parties where possible – to advance bold solutions that lift our crushing burden of debt and ensure a future of opportunity, growth and prosperity.”

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Key facts from the President’s budget:

Spends Too Much:
- $47 trillion of government spending over the next decade
- Proposes a net increase over current spending projections
Taxes Too Much:
- $1.9 trillion in new taxes
- Raises taxes, not to pay down the debt, but to fuel more government spending
Borrows Too Much:
- Four straight years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits; no plan to reduce the debt
- Gross debt at the end of FY22: $25.9 trillion
Budget Gimmicks & Broken Promises
- Overstates new deficit reduction by taking credit for savings already enacted
- Exploits discredited budget gimmick by “not spending” nearly $1 trillion that was never going to be spent

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A bicameral fact sheet prepared by the House Budget Committee and Senate Budget Committee:
http://budget.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=280065

House Budget Committee hearings this week to review the President’s FY13 budget:

- Wednesday, February 15 – 10:00 AM – OMB Acting Director Jeffrey Zients

- Thursday, February 16 – 2:00 PM – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

- To learn more: http://budget.house.gov/HearingSchedule/

Associated Press: Obama's budget: Government still getting bigger

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

By Andrew Taylor
Associated Press

Taking a pass on reining in government growth, President Obama unveiled a record $3.8 trillion election-year budget plan Monday, calling for stimulus-style spending on roads and schools and tax hikes on the wealthy to help pay the costs. The ideas landed with a thud on Capitol Hill.

Though the Pentagon and a number of Cabinet agencies would get squeezed, Obama would leave the spiraling growth of health care programs for the elderly and the poor largely unchecked. The plan claims $4 trillion in deficit savings over the coming decade, but most of it would be through tax increases Republicans oppose, lower war costs already in motion and budget cuts enacted last year in a debt pact with GOP lawmakers.

Many of the ideas in the White House plan for the 2013 budget year will be thrashed out during this year's election campaigns as the Republicans try to oust Obama from the White House and add Senate control to their command of the House.

"We can't just cut our way into growth," Obama said at a campaign-style rally at a community college in the vote-rich Northern Virginia suburbs. "We can cut back on the things that we don't need, but we also have to make sure that everyone is paying their fair share for the things that we do need."

Republicans were unimpressed.

"It seems like the president has decided again to campaign instead of govern and that he's just going to duck this country's fiscal problems," said House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

By the administration's reckoning, the deficit would drop to $901 billion next year - still requiring the government to borrow 24 cents of every dollar it spends - and would settle in the $600 billion-plus range by 2015.The deficit for the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30, would hit $1.3 trillion, a near record and the fourth straight year of trillion-plus red ink.

Obama's budget blueprint reprises a long roster of prior proposals: raising taxes on couples making more than $250,000 a year; eliminating numerous tax breaks for oil and gas companies and approving a series of smaller tax and fee proposals. Similar proposals failed even when the Democrats controlled Congress.

The Pentagon would cut purchases of Navy ships and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters - and trim 100,000 troops from its rolls over coming years - while NASA would scrap two missions to Mars.

But there are spending increases, too: The Obama plan seeks $476 billion for transportation projects including roads, bridges and a much-criticized high-speed rail initiative. Grants for better performing schools would get a big increase under Obama's "Race to the Top" initiative, and there would be an $8 billion fund to train community college students for high-growth industries.

Republicans accused the president of yet again failing to do anything meaningful to reduce deficits that could threaten the country with a European-style debt crisis unless they are wrestled under control.

As a political document, the Obama plan blends a handful of jobs-boosting initiatives with poll-tested tax hikes on the rich, including higher taxes on dividends and income earned by hedge fund managers. That would allow Obama to draw a contrast with GOP front-runner Mitt Romney, whose personal fortune and relatively low tax rate would be an issue in the general election campaign.

Another contrast with Republicans will come on Medicare, the enormously popular health care programs for the elderly. Obama leaves the program mostly alone, while Republicans are on record in favor of gradually replacing the current system in which the government pays doctor and hospital bills with a voucher-like plan that would have government subsidize purchases of health insurance.

Nor does Obama tackle Social Security's fiscal imbalance. Payroll taxes paid into the program fall well short of what's needed to cover benefits; the shortfall is made up by tapping into a $2.7 trillion trust fund that's built up since the last overhaul of the program in the early 1980s.

Said Romney: "We can save Social Security and Medicare with a few commonsense reforms, and - unlike President Obama - I'm not afraid to put them on the table."

The president's tax proposals and most of his new jobs initiatives are likely to arrive as dead letters on Capitol Hill, where the immediate focus is on Obama's proposal to renew a 2 percentage point cut in Social Security payroll taxes and jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. House GOP leaders did an abrupt about-face on Monday and declared that they are willing to add to the deficit the $100 billion cost of renewing the payroll tax cut.

While Obama and Congress appear headed for deadlock over big-picture questions such as Medicare cuts and tax hikes, there's still the work of filling in the details of last summer's budget and debt pact, which set tight caps on annual appropriations bills funding the day-to-day operations of government.

Those caps are putting most agencies, except the Department of Veterans Affairs, in a pinch.

The Pentagon, which had grown used to budget increases well in excess of inflation until recently, would absorb its first outright budget cut since the post-Cold War "peace dividend" of the early 1990s, including cuts to major weapons systems, fewer combat ships and the reduction in troops.

On taxes, Obama proposes allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire at the end of this year for families making $250,000 or more per year.

Obama, as he has in the past, also proposed capping tax deductions taken by the wealthy and would also put in place a rule named for billionaire Warren Buffett that would seek to make sure that households making more than $1 million annually pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. The "Buffett Rule" would replace the alternative minimum tax, which was originally designed to ensure that wealthy families pay at least some tax.

Obama would also impose a new $61 billion tax over 10 years on big banks aimed at recovering the costs of the financial bailout and providing money to help homeowners facing foreclosure. The proposal also would raise $41 billion over 10 years by eliminating tax breaks for oil, gas and coal companies.

The plan contains a host of other proposals whose budget impact would be modest but would be felt by almost everyone, among them an end to Saturday mail delivery. There's also a plan to raise $593 million by eliminating deductions for golf course conservation easement and a plan that would raise the one-way security fee on airline tickets to $7.50, up from fees that are now as low as $2.50 for a nonstop flight.

To spur job creation in the short term, Obama is proposing a $50 billion "upfront" investment for transportation, $30 billion to modernize at least 35,000 schools and $30 billion to help states hire teachers and police, rescue and fire department workers. Republicans in Congress, opposed to further stimulus spending, have blocked these proposals in the past.

The Obama budget seeks $360 billion in savings in Medicare and Medicaid mainly through reduced payments to health care providers, avoiding tougher measures, advocated by House Republicans and the deficit commissions, which supporters said were critical to the cause of restraining health care costs.

The projections in Obama's budget show that he is doing little to restrain the surge in these programs that is expected with the retirement of baby boomers. Obama's budget projects that Medicare spending will double over the coming decade from $478 billion this year to almost $1 trillion in 2022.

Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor and disabled, would more than double from $255 billion this year to $589 billion by 2022.

FACT CHECK: Jack Lew's Sunday Show Tour of Dodge & Deception

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

In advance of the release of the President’s FY2013 budget request, White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew revealed a stunning deception with respect to the budget process. When asked why the Democrat-controlled Senate has failed to pass a budget for over 1,000 days, Lew – the President’s former budget director – falsely claimed on both CNN and Meet the Press that a supermajority is needed to pass a budget resolution in the U.S. Senate, and that a ‘filibuster’ is what stands in the way of Senator Reid’s inability to pass a budget.

FACT CHECK: This morning, when pressed further on this question, Lew revealed a stunning deception with respect to the budget process. Lew claimed on both CNN and Meet the Press that a supermajority is needed to pass a budget resolution in the U.S. Senate, and that a ‘filibuster’ is what stands in the way of Senator Reid’s inability to pass a budget.

- Jack Lew on MTP: “Well, one of the things about the United States Senate that I don’t think the American people realize is that it takes 60 not 50 votes to pass something.”

- Jack Lew on CNN: “We also need to be honest. You can't pass a budget in the Senate of the United States without 60 votes.”

That is simply false: “The budget resolution…requires only a majority vote to pass, and its consideration is one of the few actions that cannot be filibustered in the Senate.”

Confusion when it comes to the budget law is nothing new for this Administration. The President’s budget request tomorrow is already past the deadline set by the 1974 Congressional Budget Act, the latest in a lengthy string of violations of their legal obligations.

Has the White House bothered to ask their party’s leaders in the U.S. Senate the real reason they refuse to prioritize the American people’s tax dollars? Is it that they can’t admit to how much more they want to take from hardworking American families in order to fuel their spending appetite?

Tomorrow’s belated budget request from the President will likely provide some guidance to these questions. With respect to why Democrat leaders fear detailing their real priorities, Chairman Ryan noted the following this past week:

While President Obama shirks his responsibility to advance solutions to our fiscal challenges, he can no longer hide from the merciless math of the balance sheet.

We have pressured the President to put forward a number of deficit-reduction proposals – and while none has offered a credible solution to our fiscal crisis, each one has revealed a little bit more about what the President would do if he were forced to end the deficits. It wouldn’t be pretty. His proposals have three things in common: they load massive tax increases on small businesses and hardworking families, they require bureaucratic rationing in government health care programs, and they hollow out our national security.

Every time we force the President and his party’s leaders to get specific on how they would solve our fiscal challenges, they show us an agenda that does great harm to our economic security, our health security, and our national security.

PAUL RYAN on ABC’s ‘This Week’: Leaders have a moral obligation to advance solutions

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin appeared on ABC’s This Week on February 12th, 2012. Below are several highlights from his interview with George Stephanopoulos:

The Urgent Need to Protect the Medicare Guarantee from Bankruptcy & Board of Bureaucrats in Washington

“We’re taking responsibility for dealing with the drivers of our debt. You have to remember, George, that Medicare is going bankrupt; that the President’s health-care law puts a board of 15 unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of cutting Medicare, which will lead to denied care for seniors; the President’s health-care law takes a half-a-trillion dollars from Medicare to spend on Obamacare.

“When you actually look at what we’re proposing, we’re showing that there’s a bipartisan consensus in Congress on how to preserve the Medicare guarantee; how to save and strengthen the program. We don’t change any benefit for anyone 55 and above, and we save this guarantee for younger generations so they can actually count on it. So when the dust settles and people see actually what we’re doing - how we’re promoting bipartisan solutions – I think we’re going to be fine. I think it’s irresponsible not to [propose solutions].”

A Growing Consensus of Principled Reformers; The President’s Decision to Reject Bipartisan Solutions

“There are bipartisan leaders in Congress working together. [Oregon Senator] Ron Wyden and I are working on a plan to save and strengthen the program – to keep the Medicare guarantee for current and future seniors. What we’re showing is that there’s a consensus on how best to save Medicare. Unfortunately, the president and his party’s leaders – they’re not a part of this conversation, and that to me is very disappointing.”

No Budget? No Problem. The Senate Democrat Majority Refuses to Prioritize Spending and Tackle the Debt Threat

“Last year we passed a budget to save and strengthen health and retirement security, to pay off our debt, to grow our economy. We passed 30 bills aimed at growing the economy that are sitting in the Senate. We passed four budget process reform bills to strengthen the way we account for taxpayer money. The Senate has done nothing. The Senate, against current law, has not passed a budget in 2010, 2011, and now Senator Reid says he’s not even going to budget again in 2012. We will because the law says we will need to, but we also think we have a moral obligation to try and fix this country’s big problems before they get out of our control.”

Chairman Ryan Praises Passage of Bipartisan Bill to Control Wasteful Spending

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

WASHINGTON – Earlier today, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3521, The Expedited Legislative Line-Item Veto and Rescissions Act. This bipartisan reform was co-authored by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). H.R. 3521 – the fourth budget-process reform passed by the House in the past week – would provide policymakers with an additional tool to target unjustified spending in appropriations bills, while making certain that Congress maintains its constitutional power of the purse.

Following passage, Chairman Ryan issued the following statement:

“Washington spends too much money that we don’t have on programs that can’t be justified. This bipartisan reform will help lawmakers do a better job of prioritizing hardworking taxpayers’ dollars. And unlike the line-item veto adopted in the 1990s, this reform keeps the power of the purse here in Congress, just as the Founders intended.

“While there is much that divides us these days, this new tool to control spending is the result of Democrats and Republicans coming together in good faith to take a step forward in tackling our deficit challenge. I hope that we can build upon today’s bipartisan reform effort to advance the structural reforms needed to lift our crushing burden of debt and get our nation back on track. I am thankful for the leadership and good faith of Ranking Member Chris Van Hollen and other members of the House Budget Committee who were instrumental in advancing this common-sense reform.”

To learn more about the additional budget process reform bills authored by members of the House Budget Committee and passed on the House floor this past week:

•   The Pro-Growth Budgeting Act: http://budget.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=277941
•   The Baseline Reform Act: http://budget.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=278066
•   The Budget and Accounting Transparency Act: http://budget.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=278590

To learn more about the House Budget Committee’s continued efforts to reform the broken budget process, click here: http://budget.house.gov/BudgetProcessReform/