Lummis: Dems' Pay-Go Plan is Window Dressing

Press Release

U.S. Representative Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., issued the following statement regarding the House Democrat pay-as-you-go (PAY-GO) plan:

"The PAY-GO concept - that you have to pay for any new spending with cuts elsewhere in your budget - is something most families in Wyoming understand and embrace. But families in Wyoming and across the nation don't have the luxury of exempting 40 percent of their budgets from such discipline, as this bill does.

"Families are being forced to make sacrifices and cut back on all of their expenses, their entire budgets. This bill woefully ignores the need to balance our budget. Our deficit will soar to $1.8 trillion this year. The President's Budget will triple our debt in ten years.

"Yet, the Democrats' PAY-GO bill won't reduce these debts and deficits. It won't stop the runaway federal spending spree. It won't slow the unsustainable growth of our entitlement programs. Rather, this legislation will still allow entitlement spending to grow at its current, unsustainable rates.

"Despite their rhetoric, their agenda is to expand entitlements. They will raise taxes to do it, and because of disingenuous budgeting that hides true costs, our entitlement problems don't get better, they get worse.

"If we were serious about balancing the budget, PAY-GO would cap total spending. It would cap our budget deficits. It would not have a built-in loophole for the $239 billion deficit impact of the majority's health reform plan, as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.

"The Republican plan I supported on the House floor caps total spending. It caps our budget deficits. It forces Congress to pass deficit-neutral healthcare reform legislation, just as President Obama has asked Congress and promised to the American people.

"PAY-GO has been tried and failed. Democrats reinstated it in 2007 and since that time our budget deficit has soared from $162 billion to $1.8 trillion. All of that spending cannot be blamed on President Bush.

"This Congress needs to take responsibility for setting us on a fiscal path that will bankrupt this nation for our children and grandchildren."

Since the Democrat takeover of Congress, the public debt has nearly doubled from $4.8 trillion in 2006 to $8.6 trillion in 2010. Over the same period, the nation's deficit has exploded by more than ten-fold, from $162 billion in FY 2007 under the Republican's last budget, to $1.8 trillion in FY 2009. In the 110th Congress alone, Democrats used loopholes or simply waived the PAY-GO rule to pass bills increasing the deficit by $420 billion.

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