Hearing of Senate Finance Committee on Budget

This Budget Shows That You Can't Be an Ideological Conservative and Compassionate at the Same Time

Today, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer delivered the following statement at the Senate Finance Committee Hearing on the FY 2007 Budget put forward by the Administration yesterday:

I have reviewed the President's budget proposal, and one thing that stands out to me is this: The President's ideology puts him in a straitjacket. The budget makes one thing clear: You can't be an ideological conservative AND be compassionate at the same time.

Look at what this budget contains:

1. Nearly two trillion dollars in additional tax cuts, most of it geared towards the well-to-do, rather than the middle class that's finding it harder and harder to make ends meet with rising health care, tuition, and energy costs.

2. Program cuts that decimate the needy and the middle class in the guise of making courageous choices, when in truth a courageous budget would have cut programs for corporate America, Big Oil, and other special interests.

3. There is a lot of fanfare for new programs such as energy independence and more money for math and science teachers, but so few dollars dedicated to them that these necessary new initiatives amount to all hat, and no cattle.

4. And last but not least, more and more debt. By the end of his second term, President Bush will have presided over a near-doubling of the "birth tax," or the amount of the publicly-held debt owed by every man, woman, and child in America. Even if we were to completely eliminate all non-defense discretionary spending - nothing for education, veterans, and transportation - there would still be a significant deficit.

http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/press_releases/2006/PR47.Finance%20Comm%20Budget.020706.html