Post by bot on Mar 15, 2016 16:39:19 GMT -5
Hoyer Statement on Republican Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2017
WASHINGTON, DC – House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) released the following statement today in response to House Republicans’ budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2017:
“With their FY2017 Budget, House Republicans have chosen to double-down on their agenda of ending the Medicare guarantee and imposing severe cuts to programs that encourage job growth and increase access to economic opportunity. They continue to rely on a discredited supply-side economics mantra that tax cuts pay for themselves when, in reality, they balloon the deficit and put future generations more deeply into debt. They also hide $1.5 trillion in unspecified spending cuts behind a magic asterisk that allows them to avoid the tough decisions about what programs would get cut back and by how much.
“Instead of working across the aisle to ensure we are able to give our workers and small business owners the tools they need to compete in a changing economy, House Republicans are attempting to placate the most extreme wing of their party through disinvestment and an abandonment of our common responsibility to help those struggling to make it in America. This budget asks seniors, low-income working families, and the sick to carry a greater share of the burden of deficit reduction while telling the middle class: you’re on your own.
“House Democrats will continue to promote investments through the FY2017 budget that show middle class families and small businesses that Congress is on their side. We will keep working to empower Americans to seize the new opportunities that our twenty-first century economy presents. That means making smart investments in education and skills training, infrastructure, and innovation. And it means working across the aisle to find the common ground necessary to put America back on a fiscally sustainable path that reduces uncertainty and promotes the growth of private sector jobs that pay well.
“I urge House Republicans to reconsider their extreme budget proposals that put America’s future at risk by failing to invest in our nation’s greatest resource: our people. Instead, let’s come together and adopt a budget resolution that not only adheres to last year’s bipartisan agreement but that begins to take our economy from recovery to resurgence.”