Budget Underfunds National & Border Priorities

BUDGET UNDERFUNDS NATIONAL & BORDER PRIORITIES

2/6/2006

President George W. Bush submitted his fiscal year 2007 budget to Congress today, and Congressman Reyes released the following statement in response to the President's budget request.

President George W. Bush submitted his fiscal year 2007 budget to Congress today, and proposed cutting funding for several domestic programs El Pasoans rely on, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Congressman Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso, released the following statement in response to the President's budget request:

"This is President Bush's sixth budget, and for the sixth year in a row, I am baffled by some of his priorities," said Reyes. "For instance, just last week in his State of the Union address, the President said that ‘our government has a responsibility to help provide health care for the poor and the elderly, and we are meeting that responsibility.' His 2007 budget proposal, however, flies in the face of that statement. Instead of strengthening Medicare and Medicaid to provide quality health care for the families in El Paso and across the nation who rely on them, he has chosen to cut Medicare by $36 billion over the next five years, as well as cut Medicaid and CHIP, to finance tax cuts for our nation's wealthiest citizens. It is morally and fiscally irresponsible to cut important domestic programs in favor of fax cuts for those more fortunate that only increase the deficit.

"The President's budget boosts funding for defense, homeland security, and the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which are important priorities as our troops are still serving overseas, often in dangerous environments, and terrorism remains a serious threat," said Reyes, a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. "However, it would also cut funding for significant homeland security initiatives such as the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP) and the Southwest Border Prosecutors program, and slashes other initiatives important to the border region, such as funding for water infrastructure for the colonias and job training dedicated for dislocated workers.

"The current education of our children not only fails to provide the majority of our students with the tools to succeed in critical science and technology fields, it even fails to inspire them to pursue these careers in the first place. As a result, the number of Americans succeeding in science and technology careers is dropping. I have outlined solutions for this problem in my new bill, "the 21st Century National Defense Education Act," which would provide about $1 billion to improve our language, science, math, and technology training. The President announced his new "American Competitiveness Initiative" in the State of the Union, and I certainly support his efforts to improve our education and economy. However, he cut educational programs like GEAR UP and TRIO in his fiscal year 2007 budget, and by doing so ignored some of the core reasons our young students do not pursue higher education, let alone the sciences and languages. His "American Competitiveness Initiative" will have a hard time succeeding without the basic building blocks that programs like GEAR UP and TRIO provide."

http://wwwc.house.gov/reyes/news_detail.asp?id=924