Op-Ed: Bush's 2008 Budget-The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Bush's 2008 Budget-The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Last week, the President presented his budget proposal for fiscal year 2008 to the Congress. I believe that the budget is an illustration of where we are willing to invest the funds collected by our citizens to enhance the programs and services provided to our people. And, it is a reflection of the interests and values of our country.

After reviewing the full budget, I'd like to draw your attention to some of the noteworthy elements and share with you where my focus will be in crafting a final budget plan that is consistent with the priorities and values cherished by the people of this country and the state of Maryland.

From a state perspective, I am pleased that the President's budget includes some funding for programs that are important to Maryland, such as $38.9 million in funding for Patuxent River Naval Air Station and $2.4 billion for the Goddard Space Flight Center - an increase of $1 billion from 2006.

I am also pleased the President's budget provides an equal pay adjustment for military personnel and federal civilian employees. Our talented federal workforce is the bedrock of government service, providing a myriad of vital services to millions of Americans everyday. The work undertaken by these men and women is critically important, and their compensation needs to fairly reflect that. As a long-time champion of fair federal employee pay and pay parity, I will fight for a fair adjustment that reflects the critical work our federal employees do on our behalf.

These are good provisions that I will fight to include in the final budget that emerges out of Congress. Overall, however, I believe the President's proposal could have dire implications for our nation and our state, which depends on the federal government to support programs and services to educate our children, protect our environment, provide healthcare to our people and provide assistance to our first responders.

For example, the President's budget proposes to cut roughly $300 billion over ten years from Medicaid and Medicare and increase the number of uninsured children by shortchanging state grants for children's healthcare at a time when states like Maryland are already struggling to pay their state share of healthcare costs. Rather than try to solve our nation's healthcare crisis by lowering costs and expanding coverage for the uninsured, these federal cut backs will only exacerbate the problem by limiting healthcare resources from those that need them most - low-income children, the elderly, and people with disabilities.

Healthcare for our veterans and military retirees is also a target in the President's budget, which proposes to leave the Veterans Administration seven to eight percent short 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.

I also object the budget's 33 percent cut in programs that help states prepare first responders and a 55 percent cut in grants for firefighters. Among the targeted programs include the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program and the State Homeland Security Grant Program. At a time when our first responders factor so critically into our homeland security and emergency preparedness, it simply does not make sense to cut back on these valuable resources. As an original sponsor of these programs, I will continue to fight for greater support of our firefighters and first responders.

The protection of the Chesapeake Bay is, unfortunately, is also given short shrift. Our efforts to clean up the Bay will be severely handicapped under the President's budget, which cuts millions to such valuable initiatives as the Water State Revolving Loan Fund and the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Program. The Bay is one of Maryland's most valuable natural resources, and I will fight to restore these cuts.

I was also disappointed that the budget, which adds $3.2 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years, fails to adequately rein in historic deficits and debts. The President continues to thumb his nose at fiscal discipline, refusing once again to apply bipartisan pay-as-you-go rules to his massive tax cuts. American families don't get to ignore their financial obligations and then claim to have a balanced family budget - the federal government shouldn't either. The Congress is prepared to work in a bipartisan way to make the tough choices that will return our budgets to fiscal responsibility, but we need to have an honest commitment from the President to do the same.

Last November, Americans sent a clear message and voted for a new direction for the country. The budget is a chance to get our national priorities straight. Overall, I think the first draft of the budget put forth by the President gets some of it right but is - by and large - more of the same. The Congress is absolutely committed to real action on reining in the record deficits and exploding debt that have been created over the past six years and will offer a 2008 budget plan that puts our fiscal house in order and funds America's and Maryland's priorities once and for all.

http://hoyer.house.gov/newsroom/index.asp?ID=862