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News from the House Budget Committee
Spratt Statement on the President’s WASHINGTON – House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt (D-SC) issued the following statement on the President’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget. “As the Bush Administration begins its last lap, one looks for a mea culpa for its dismal fiscal record, and looks for a budget that acknowledges its mistakes that have left us a mountain of debt. But today’s budget bears all the hallmarks of the Bush legacy — it leads to more deficits, more debt, more tax cuts, more cutbacks in critical services. “The President took office with an advantage that no president in recent history has enjoyed – a budget in surplus, $236 billion in surplus in fiscal year 2000. His economists estimated that over the next ten years, cumulative surpluses would amount to $5.6 trillion. “Democrats warned the President not to bet the budget on a blue-sky forecast of the economy. He spurned our advice, and in effect, told the country that we could have guns, butter, and tax cuts too–and never mind the deficits. By the year 2004, the surplus was gone, vanished, and replaced by a deficit of $413 billion, the largest in American history in nominal terms. “Ever since turning record surpluses to record deficits, the Administration has assured us that good news was just around the corner; but we have turned the corner, and the news is not good at all. The five largest deficits in American history (2004, 2008, 2009, 2003, and 2005) all have occurred under this Administration’s policies. When the President took office, the national debt stood at $5.7 trillion; today it is $9.2 trillion and rising, projected to increase to $9.7 trillion by the time this Administration leaves office, up by $4 trillion in eight years. This is the legacy our children and grandchildren will inherit from the fiscal policy of this Administration. “Ostensibly to deal with these deficits, this Administration’s budget calls for more than half a trillion dollars in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, as well as numerous other cuts throughout the budget. Most of these cuts affect critical needs and are unlikely to generate sufficient support to become law. Even if they did become law, they are more than offset by this budget’s tax cuts and increased defense spending, making the deficits grow even larger. “Faced with huge deficits and mounting debt, President Reagan signed TEFRA in 1982 and Gramm-Rudman-Hollings in 1985, both measures designed to reduce the deficit. The first President Bush agreed to a budget summit and signed into law a resulting five-year deficit-reduction plan. President Clinton made deficit reduction his first priority, and within a month of taking office, sent Congress a multi-year plan. In 1997, President Clinton finished the job by negotiating and signing the Balanced Budget Agreement into law. “Far from proposing a plan to fix the budget, this Administration proposes policies that worsen it, and with little compunction, leaves the consequences for the next administration and future generations to correct.”
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