Peters Votes Against Democratic Budget

Press Release

Budget Violates Rep. Peters' Long-Standing Call for Domestic Spending Freeze, Circumvents Normal Budget Process

U.S. Representative Gary Peters tonight voted against the fiscal year 2011 budget crafted by his party's leadership. Peters was one of only 19 Democrats to vote for a discretionary spending freeze last year and had since publicly voiced his opposition to increasing overall government spending. The budget Democratic leaders brought to the floor today, however, increases discretionary spending from FY2010 amounts.

"Washington has got to get serious about getting our budget deficit under control, and they've got to do it now," said Peters. "I have made very clear that I cannot support a budget that increases government spending. It's true that the Republican party turned record surpluses into record deficits under President Bush, but now the Democrats in Washington need to take stronger action to slash the deficit."

Peters also protested the fact that congressional leaders circumvented the traditional budget process in passing this budget. Unlike most budgets, which outline spending for five years, this is only a one year budget. And the budget was embedded in and passed as part of the rule structuring debate on legislation providing for supplemental funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"We need greater transparency and accountability in Washington," Peters said. "Tying the budget to funding for our troops in battle is not the right thing to do."

Representative Peters has consistently stood up for fiscal responsibility and deficit reduction. In its annual Member vote rankings, National Journal ranked Peters the most moderate Member of Congress from Michigan of either party, and among the most moderate in all of Congress, due in large part to his votes to reduce the deficit.

Since becoming Oakland County's newest representative last year, Gary Peters has:

* voted against hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful spending;

* was one of only 19 Democrats to vote for a discretionary spending freeze last year;

* fought successfully to stop pay raises for Members of Congress in 2009 and 2010;

* was the first and is still one of only a few Democrats calling for a total ban on earmarks;

* ran his own office so efficiently he returned $135,000 (about 10%) of his own office budget to taxpayers;

* wrote legislation that would require left over money from other Members' offices to be put toward deficit reduction (not spent elsewhere in the budget);

* supported strong pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) legislation;

* support a bipartisan debt reduction commission to create a long term deficit reduction plan; and

* repeatedly voted against raising America's debt limit.

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