WASHINGTON – House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-SC) today made the following floor statement on the Fiscal Year 2009 Budget Conference Report.

“Every year, the Budget Committee has one all-important task, and that’s to outline a budget for Congress to follow. Today we do just that by passing the conference agreement on the budget for fiscal 2009. The Senate passed the conference agreement yesterday. 

“Passing a budget is no easy task.  This, in fact, will be the first time in eight years that Congress has passed a concurrent budget resolution in an election year. 

“Our conference agreement charts a new course. It returns the budget to balance, reaching a surplus of $22 billion in 2012 and staying in surplus thorough 2013.  This budget adheres to pay-as-you-go, and also embraces middle-income tax cuts. 

“Our budget begins by undoing the damages done by the President’s budget to services that people depend upon.

• Take Medicare and Medicaid, for example, pillars of medical care for millions of Americans. The President would cut Medicare by $479 billion over ten years (2009 – 2018) and Medicaid by $94 billion. We reject those cuts; restore Medicare and Medicaid to current services; and accommodate adding up to $50 billion to the Children’s Health Insurance Program, fully offset, to reach millions of children eligible but not yet enrolled in CHIP.

• The President proposes more than $18 billion over five years in new fees on military retirees and veterans.  We reject those fees and add $3.7 billion above current services to the VA health care system for 2009 alone.

• The President even digs into education, cutting Function 500 (Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services), not only next year but over five years by $32.7 billion.  We reject the President’s cuts in education, and in particular, his elimination of 47 educational programs – and instead we make significant increases for the education function.

“And our budget supports investment not just in education, but in research, development, science, and innovation, through NIH and NSF and other entities, by providing substantially more than the President requested.

“Finally, since strong countries are made of strong communities, we believe that law enforcement grants, and community development grants, and transportation grants, are part of the federal role. We, therefore, reverse the President’s deep cuts in the Community Development and Social Services Block Grants and in LIHEAP and law enforcement, and this budget invests in our nation’s infrastructure.

“Because this budget upholds all these priorities, it has drawn support from dozens of non-partisan groups, from the AARP to the American Legion to the American Hospital Association. All have sent us letters of support.  I urge my colleagues to support it as well.

“We face in this country more than a budget deficit and a trade deficit; we have an energy deficit as well. Read the President’s budget, and you will find little that’s new about skyrocketing energy costs, renewable energy, clean fuel technology, and conservation, and efficiency. What you will find are heavy hits on LIHEAP, the one program that helps families heat their homes in winter and cool them in summer. Our budget restores LIHEAP to a level that’s about $3 billion above the President’s budget. And for funding the development of alternative fuels, renewable energies, and other energy initiatives, our budget provides $7.7 billion.

“As I have mentioned already, this conference agreement extends tax cuts to help middle-income families caught in the current slump. For example, we protect some 20 million middle-income households from being hit by the Alternative Minimum Tax.  Our budget accommodates extension of the middle-income tax cuts, including the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, and the ten percent individual income tax bracket, in accordance with the pay-as-you-go principle so as not to burden future generations with more debt.

“Our friends on the other side of the aisle will claim that this budget raises taxes.  This budget does not raise taxes. But don’t take my word for it; here is what experts outside Congress say:

• The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:  “The conference agreement does not raise taxes.”

• The Hamilton Project of the Brookings Institution:  “The budget would not raise taxes.”

• The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:  “This year’s budget plan does not include a tax increase.”

“There is one criticism our colleagues across the aisle cannot even make as to this conference agreement. In terms of national security, we provide in dollars the same as the President’s base budget requested, except that we call for better stewardship of these billions and better priorities.

“If anything, our conference agreement protects the homeland and internal security more than the President’s budget because we reverse his cuts in local law enforcement, firefighters, and first responders.

“When President Bush took office in 2001, the budget was in surplus by $236 billion. His economists looked out ten years and saw nothing but surpluses, $5.6 trillion, all told. President Bush told the country that we could have it all—guns, butter, and tax cuts too, and never mind the deficits. Now, almost 8 years later, we can see the results. Under the fiscal policies of the Bush Administration, our national debt has mushroomed, grown from $5.7 trillion in 2001 to $10 trillion in 2009.

“Faced with these grim facts, the President’s 2009 budget proposes more of the same.  He is still, in effect, saying that we can have guns, butter, and tax cuts too, and deficits don’t matter because foreign investors will keep buying our Treasury bonds.

“In contrast, the budget before us is a step in the right direction. This is a balanced budget with balanced priorities. It may not be a grand solution, but this budget moves us in the right direction, enforcing fiscal responsibility but not to the exclusion of other values that we hold dear.”

Audio files attached in MP3 format:

• No New Taxes 00:32 seconds
• Summary 00:11 seconds

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