Hoyer: President Bush's 2008 Budget Falls Short in Addressing Maryland's Priorities

Hoyer: President Bush's 2008 Budget Falls Short in Addressing Maryland's Priorities

In response to President Bush's FY 2008 budget proposal, Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) praised the inclusion of some important local projects, but expressed disappointment at the budget's failure to fully address the needs of Maryland's families.

"I am pleased that the President's budget includes $17.9 million to construct the first phase of an Aircraft Prototype Facility at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station," stated Hoyer. "When completed, this facility will play a significant role in improving the capabilities of our nation's naval aircraft. This is a project of national importance that I have advocated on behalf of for several years."

The new funding for the Aircraft Prototype Facility will cover the construction costs of new facilities aimed at augmenting and improving naval aviation capabilities at Patuxent River Naval Air Station. Under the President's budget, Patuxent also stands to receive another $20.73 million for the E-2 Advanced Hawkeye RDT&E Facility and the addition of a Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS) on existing facilities.

Hoyer also applauded the President's request for at least $2.4 billion for the Goddard Space Flight Center - an increase of $1 billion from FY 2006. Among many projects, the funding will support continued funding for a servicing mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope, the continuation of the James Webb Space Telescope program, along with funding for Mars Exploration programs and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Throughout his career, Hoyer has been a strong supporter of NASA Goddard, which is significant both as a national research facility and as a regional employer. "I am pleased that the President's budget proposes funding for the continuation of these important programs undertaken by the highly skilled workforce at Goddard which are key to our further understanding of our universe."

Despite having some positive items, Hoyer said the President's overall budget proposal is largely disconnected from the needs of middle-class Marylanders.

"Our country has voiced its desire for a new direction - and the new Congress is dedicated to giving the American people exactly that," stated Hoyer. "However, this budget is only more of the same from a President who has failed to set his priorities in line with those of the American people. Not only does the proposal make drastic cuts to the programs our state relies on, such as Medicare and Medicaid, and a host of other domestic priorities, it fails to reign in our growing federal deficits while protecting tax cuts for those making millions."

"What this budget makes clear is that President Bush is making the wrong choices for Maryland. I will fight to restore these cuts and work to ensure our budget is a reflection of the interests and values of our people," Hoyer added.

Hoyer was disappointed to see a significant drop-off of funds for the consolidation of FDA facilities at the Federal Research Center at White Oak. The President proposes $57.8 million for this purpose - $127.6 billion less than last year's funding level. Hoyer has been a champion of completing a major overhaul of the FDA campus. Over the years, he has helped to secure over $442 million in federal funds for this important effort.

Hoyer offered more specifics below on the impact of the President's budget on Maryland residents.

FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

Hoyer, a long-time champion of fair federal employee pay and pay parity, said today that he was pleased that President Bush's FY 2008 budget proposal provides an equal pay adjustment for members of both the armed services and the federal civilian workforce.

However, Hoyer expressed concern that the proposed 3 percent adjustment may be insufficient to ensure the government is able to recruit and retain quality workers, notably in the wake of last year's inadequate overall increase of 2.2 percent.

"Last year federal employees - particularly civilian workers -were shortchanged with the lowest pay adjustment in nearly twenty years," stated Hoyer. "Our talented federal civilian workforce is the bedrock of our government, providing a myriad of vital services to millions of Americans. The work undertaken by these talented men and women is critically important, and their compensation needs to fairly reflect that."

Hoyer continued, "A 3 percent adjustment is obviously higher than last year's insufficient increase, but we will need to assess this proposal in the context of the long-term impact of recent adjustment levels on an already significant pay gap between federal employees and their private sector counterparts."

In the weeks ahead, Hoyer said he intends to investigate the adequacy of next year's proposed salary adjustment, consulting with respected members of the House Armed Services Committee, Government Reform Committee, as well as representatives of the military and federal civilian workforce.

EDUCATION

The President's budget proposal cuts overall education funding by 2.5 percent, and eliminates 42 education programs, including many critical to Maryland.

After a four-year freeze of the federal Pell Grant, Hoyer was pleased to see an increase in the maximum Pell Grant from the 2006 level of $4,050 to $5,400 over five years. He was, however, disappointed that the budget again freezes funds for other key college programs - such as work study - and zeros out Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG). In 2006, Maryland received $14.7 million in federal college work study funds and $11.1 million in SEOB grants.

ENVIRONMENT

Hoyer said the Administration's proposal leaves us far short of the amount necessary to significantly improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay.

Hoyer decried budget proposals to slash programs crucial to cleaning up the Bay, specifically a 27 percent cut to the Clean Water State Revolving Program and the total elimination of the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Program.

The President's budget funds the EPA's Chesapeake Bay Program Office at $28.8 million. This funding is roughly the same as in past years.

HEALTHCARE

The President's budget proposes $309 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid over ten yers and billions in new premiums that threaten to endanger Maryland's 687,000 Medicare patients' access to the care they need to lead healthy, independent lives.

Hoyer was also alarmed by the lack of sufficient funding provided in the budget for the State Children's Health Insurance Program to reduce the number of uninsured children - included 137,000 in the state of Maryland. While the President's budget would slightly increase the federal contribution of the SCHIP, it is $10 billion less than is needed to merely continue covering the children already enrolled in the program.

"Rather than try to solve our nation's healthcare crisis by lowering costs and expanding coverage for the uninsured, the President's budget plan will only exacerbate the problem by cutting billions in healthcare resources from those that need it most- children and the elderly," stated Hoyer.

HOMELAND SECURITY

President Bush's budget again proposes eliminating funding for the SAFER Grant Program, which helps departments hire new firefighters, recruit and retain volunteer fire fighters, and provide relief to the thousands of local fire stations across the country that are currently operating short of staff. The President also cuts the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program by $247 million and the State Homeland Security Grant Program by $187 million, a program which awarded $83.3 million to Maryland from 2003 to 2006.

"At a time when our first responders are critical to our homeland security, it doesn't make sense to cut back on these valuable resources," Hoyer said. "As an original sponsor of these programs, I will continue to fight for greater support of our firefighters and first responders."

Furthermore, the budget again guts funding for programs that assist local law enforcement agencies by eliminating two of Maryland's local crime fighting tools - the Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS) program and Justice Assistance Grants (JAG). In 2006, Maryland received $7.4 million in JAG funding and $3 million in COPS funding.

VETERANS

Hoyer noted that the President continues to break our nation's promise to our veterans, by including an insufficient request for the Veterans Administration that is 7-8 percent shy of what the department has said it needs to provide health care services for the nation's veterans. Without adequate funding, the VA healthcare system will find it more difficult to provide quality care for Maryland's 481,000 veterans and those troops returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan. The budget also proposes a $250-$1000 annual enrollment fee and increased co-payments for outpatient pharmacy services from $8 to $15, raising health care costs for hundreds of thousands of veterans.

FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

Hoyer also expressed his disappointment that the President's budget fails to rein in historic deficits and debts, and instead relies on accounting gimmicks and unrealistic forecasting to claim a balanced budget by 2012. Currently, every Marylander's share of the national debt is $28,879.

"After turning a surplus into mountains of debt, President Bush is trying to claim that he is setting our nation on a track to balanced budgets, but that is unfortunately not the case," said Hoyer, noting that the Bush budget leaves out big ticket expenses, such as the continuing cost of the war past 2009 and a long a long-term fix to the Alternative Minimum Tax needed to prevent middle-class families from facing serious tax increases.

In the FY 2008 budget, President Bush proposes spending $1.7 trillion to make his tax cuts permanent over 10 years, growing the national debt to $11.5 trillion by 2012 - just at the time the baby boomer population will begin its massive retirement, putting additional pressures on the federal budget.

"The President continues to thumb his nose at disciplined fiscal practices needed to balance the budget, refusing once again to apply bipartisan pay-as-you-go rules to his massive tax cuts," stated Hoyer "The Congress is prepared to work in a bipartisan way to make the tough choices that will return our budgets to fiscal responsibility, but the President's 2008 budget proposal is not even close to the right approach."

http://hoyer.house.gov/newsroom/index.asp?ID=852&DocumentType=Press+Release