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A Budget of Gimmicks, False Promises, and Unrealistic Expectations -- syndication, 06:06:46 03/02/04 Tue
A Budget of Gimmicks, False Promises, and Unrealistic Expectations
by Senator Robert Byrd
Floor Remarks February 27, 2004
US Senate
Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks as the Senate Budget Committee prepares to debate and vote on the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2005. The Budget Committee is expected to work on that budget beginning on Wednesday, March 3, 2004. Also, the chart that Senator Byrd utilized on the Senate floor as part of this speech is available.
With the release of the President's budget for the Fiscal Year 2005, and the upcoming markup of the Fiscal Year 2005 budget resolution, it's now clear that the promises made by this Administration during the 2000 election have not been kept.
Contrary to the promise made four years ago to ensure the Social Security benefits promised to our nation's workers, our retirement and disability system has become more vulnerable.
Contrary to the promise made four years ago to make health care more affordable, drug prices continue to rise and health insurance remains unobtainable for too many Americans.
Contrary to the promises made four years ago to protect our nation's vital industries, this Administration's tax and trade policies have been an unmitigated disaster, with an alarming number of jobs being lost overseas.
Contrary to its assurances that it could be trusted to act as a prudent and responsible manager of our nation's fiscal policies, the Bush Administration has demonstrated neither prudence nor fiscal responsibility.
In his February 2001 address to a Joint Session of Congress, the President promised to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years. He said that's "more debt repaid more quickly than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history." He has not kept that promise. Since the President submitted his Fiscal Year 2002 budget, our gross national debt has increased from $5.6 trillion to $7 trillion, and deficits have risen to $521 billion in the Fiscal Year 2004.
With deficit projections mounting, the cries of alarm are growing steadily louder.
The IMF, an international organization normally concerned with the debt problems of third-world nations, has issued an alarming critique of the United States, pleading with the Bush Administration to rein in its massive budget and trade deficits. Similar warnings have emanated from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, from former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and from the U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. Even the Administration's own political allies, ranging from the conservative Heritage Foundation to private-sector economists who endorsed the President's tax cuts, have pleaded with this Administration to get its fiscal act together.
Yet these warnings fall on deaf ears in this Administration. After spending $1.7 trillion to finance three enormous tax cuts in the last three years, the President's budget proposes an additional $1.24 trillion for more tax cuts.
President Bush's assertion that his budget will cut the deficit in half by 2009 is one more in a litany of promises that will go unfulfilled. The Bush Administration's own budget documents show that if none of its proposals were enacted into law, the deficit would still be cut in half. The President's budget actually makes the deficit worse in 2009 than if the Congress took no action at all.
For the Fiscal Years 2001 - 2010, this Administration's policies have transformed a ten-year, $5.6 trillion surplus into a $4 trillion deficit. And it just keeps getting worse. The President's budget includes record deficit projections that will push our national debt to extreme limits never before seen in our nation's history.
President Bush's budget is a wake up call for working America. Under the guise of inviting middle-class workers to sit at the table and share in the tax cuts, this Administration has run up a tab that won't be paid for by thos> e with the golden parachutes. It will be the working man who gets stuck with the bill.
Instead of ensuring the Social Security benefits promised to workers, the President's budget would spend the entire Social Security surplus over the next five years - all $1.1 trillion of it - to pay for the Administration's tax cuts for the affluent and corporate elite. Not one dime would be allocated to save Social Security.
But even the enormous surpluses in the Social Security accounts can't cover the colossal cost of the Administration's tax cuts. President Bush's budget would also cut the funding for those federal programs that most benefit working families - federal student aid, unemployment and job training programs, health care initiatives for veterans and the poor and elderly - by a whopping $50 billion to pay for the Administration's tax cuts.
And still it is not enough. After draconian spending cuts and the loss of the entire Social Security surplus, the President's budget proposes to borrow an additional $1.4 trillion - much of it from countries like China and entities like OPEC - to pay for its tax cuts.
When you look at the promises versus the performance of this Administration, and the massive increases in the national debt necessary to finance their ill-conceived fiscal policies, our nation will be left with a "Bush Debt Gap" of $4.5 trillion.
The Administration is forcing working-class Americans not only to shoulder a massive debt burden, but also to give up those federal programs and services from which they most benefit.
The President's tax cuts are squeezing state revenues forcing increases in tuition rates. The cost of attendance at a four-year public college/university has gone up 26 percent since Mr. Bush became President, from an average of $8,418 in 2000 to $10,636 in 2003. Interest rates on student loans will increase, while Pell Grant monies and federal student aid programs are rolled back.
Drug prices will continue to increase - and veterans and seniors will continue to see their savings depleted - while cuts are made in those programs that help to provide them with basic health care.
Worker's pensions will remain underfunded and vulnerable, while this Administration stands passively mute.
Social Security's financing problems will continue to worsen, as money that should be saved to ensure the benefits promised to workers is wasted on an ideological fiscal policy that advocates tax cuts above all else.
The financial perils underlying the Social Security program were brought to light this week when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan forced the President to confront the fact that his Administration has been hiding from for three years now: if we continue on the fiscal course set by this Administration, we will lose the only opportunity we have left to save Social Security.
The Congress has a responsibility to better educate the public about their Social Security system. The panic in the voices of my constituents as they called my office yesterday made it clear that more must be done to keep the public informed.
A Budget of Gimmicks, False Promises, and Unrealistic Expectations
by Senator Robert Byrd
Floor Remarks February 27, 2004
US Senate
Senator Byrd delivered the following remarks as the Senate Budget Committee prepares to debate and vote on the federal budget for Fiscal Year 2005. The Budget Committee is expected to work on that budget beginning on Wednesday, March 3, 2004. Also, the chart that Senator Byrd utilized on the Senate floor as part of this speech is available.
With the release of the President's budget for the Fiscal Year 2005, and the upcoming markup of the Fiscal Year 2005 budget resolution, it's now clear that the promises made by this Administration during the 2000 election have not been kept.
Contrary to the promise made four years ago to ensure the Social Security benefits promised to our nation's workers, our retirement and disability system has become more vulnerable.
Contrary to the promise made four years ago to make health care more affordable, drug prices continue to rise and health insurance remains unobtainable for too many Americans.
Contrary to the promises made four years ago to protect our nation's vital industries, this Administration's tax and trade policies have been an unmitigated disaster, with an alarming number of jobs being lost overseas.
Contrary to its assurances that it could be trusted to act as a prudent and responsible manager of our nation's fiscal policies, the Bush Administration has demonstrated neither prudence nor fiscal responsibility.
In his February 2001 address to a Joint Session of Congress, the President promised to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years. He said that's "more debt repaid more quickly than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history." He has not kept that promise. Since the President submitted his Fiscal Year 2002 budget, our gross national debt has increased from $5.6 trillion to $7 trillion, and deficits have risen to $521 billion in the Fiscal Year 2004.
With deficit projections mounting, the cries of alarm are growing steadily louder.
The IMF, an international organization normally concerned with the debt problems of third-world nations, has issued an alarming critique of the United States, pleading with the Bush Administration to rein in its massive budget and trade deficits. Similar warnings have emanated from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, from former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and from the U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. Even the Administration's own political allies, ranging from the conservative Heritage Foundation to private-sector economists who endorsed the President's tax cuts, have pleaded with this Administration to get its fiscal act together.
Yet these warnings fall on deaf ears in this Administration. After spending $1.7 trillion to finance three enormous tax cuts in the last three years, the President's budget proposes an additional $1.24 trillion for more tax cuts.
President Bush's assertion that his budget will cut the deficit in half by 2009 is one more in a litany of promises that will go unfulfilled. The Bush Administration's own budget documents show that if none of its proposals were enacted into law, the deficit would still be cut in half. The President's budget actually makes the deficit worse in 2009 than if the Congress took no action at all.
For the Fiscal Years 2001 - 2010, this Administration's policies have transformed a ten-year, $5.6 trillion surplus into a $4 trillion deficit. And it just keeps getting worse. The President's budget includes record deficit projections that will push our national debt to extreme limits never before seen in our nation's history.
President Bush's budget is a wake up call for working America. Under the guise of inviting middle-class workers to sit at the table and share in the tax cuts, this Administration has run up a tab that won't be paid for by thos> e with the golden parachutes. It will be the working man who gets stuck with the bill.
Instead of ensuring the Social Security benefits promised to workers, the President's budget would spend the entire Social Security surplus over the next five years - all $1.1 trillion of it - to pay for the Administration's tax cuts for the affluent and corporate elite. Not one dime would be allocated to save Social Security.
But even the enormous surpluses in the Social Security accounts can't cover the colossal cost of the Administration's tax cuts. President Bush's budget would also cut the funding for those federal programs that most benefit working families - federal student aid, unemployment and job training programs, health care initiatives for veterans and the poor and elderly - by a whopping $50 billion to pay for the Administration's tax cuts.
And still it is not enough. After draconian spending cuts and the loss of the entire Social Security surplus, the President's budget proposes to borrow an additional $1.4 trillion - much of it from countries like China and entities like OPEC - to pay for its tax cuts.
When you look at the promises versus the performance of this Administration, and the massive increases in the national debt necessary to finance their ill-conceived fiscal policies, our nation will be left with a "Bush Debt Gap" of $4.5 trillion.
The Administration is forcing working-class Americans not only to shoulder a massive debt burden, but also to give up those federal programs and services from which they most benefit.
The President's tax cuts are squeezing state revenues forcing increases in tuition rates. The cost of attendance at a four-year public college/university has gone up 26 percent since Mr. Bush became President, from an average of $8,418 in 2000 to $10,636 in 2003. Interest rates on student loans will increase, while Pell Grant monies and federal student aid programs are rolled back.
Drug prices will continue to increase - and veterans and seniors will continue to see their savings depleted - while cuts are made in those programs that help to provide them with basic health care.
Worker's pensions will remain underfunded and vulnerable, while this Administration stands passively mute.
Social Security's financing problems will continue to worsen, as money that should be saved to ensure the benefits promised to workers is wasted on an ideological fiscal policy that advocates tax cuts above all else.
The financial perils underlying the Social Security program were brought to light this week when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan forced the President to confront the fact that his Administration has been hiding from for three years now: if we continue on the fiscal course set by this Administration, we will lose the only opportunity we have left to save Social Security.
The Congress has a responsibility to better educate the public about their Social Security system. The panic in the voices of my constituents as they called my office yesterday made it clear that more must be done to keep the public informed.