Matsui: President's Budget Fails to Balance Priorities
Matsui: President's Budget Fails to Balance Priorities
Monday, February 6, 2006
Washington, DC - Congresswoman Doris O. Matsui (CA-5) condemned President Bush's budget proposal because it fails to balance the priorities of this nation, calling for cuts to important domestic programs and further debt for our children and grandchildren in order to finance additional tax cuts.
"Once again, the President has refused to put all the options on the table to reduce the deficit and create a responsible budget," said Matsui. "This nation's record deficits were caused primarily by the President's tax cuts. Now, his budget proposal asks us to pay for $285 billion in additional tax cuts by slashing education and health care programs, that tradeoff does not reflect the shared sacrifice that my constituents in Sacramento demand of their elected officials."
The President's budget would reduce funding for a broad variety of domestic programs including Medicare, Medicaid, environmental protection, education, nutritional assistance, preventive health care and cancer and heart disease research. In addition to cutting these important programs, the President's budget paints an overly optimistic fiscal picture by omitting costly items such as realistic future funding for Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the costs of protecting middle class families from the alternative minimum tax. Even without including accurate costs, the President's budget projects a $354 billion deficit for 2007.
'We urgently need to have a serious dialogue about this nation's priorities, but we cannot do so because the President refuses to present an honest budget assessment to the American people," continued Matsui. "We cannot fix the fiscal mess that the President and his allies in Congress have created simply by continuing to slash and burn domestic programs, it hurts the most vulnerable among us and only serves to finance further tax cuts. It is now up to Congress to put aside the President's proposal and craft a serious budget that reflects shared sacrifice and the priorities of the American people."
http://matsui.house.gov/Newsroom.asp?ARTICLE2939=5932