Hatch: Bush Budget Good Start to Balance Budget

HATCH: BUSH BUDGET GOOD START TO BALANCE BUDGET

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) today expressed his hope that Republicans and Democrats would come together to support President George W. Bush's goal to balance the budget by 2012.

"The President's budget is a good start with the right goal - a balanced budget," Hatch said. "We need to rein in government spending, and the President found a way to do it without raising taxes, though I hope we can do it sooner than 2012. A balanced budget is achievable - we collected a half trillion dollars more revenue in 2006 than we did in 2004 because of our pro-growth tax policy. Obviously, I don't support everything in his budget, but at least he laid down a marker. Now the real work begins."

President Bush's budget seeks to keep the economy strong by making the recent tax cuts permanent, along with investing in education, affordable health care, energy security, and homeland security. Outside of these priorities, the President seeks a cut in non-security discretionary spending. Among the budget's highlights are the following:

· Promoting energy security: Supports a number of proposals to increase alternative and renewable energy resources, including $81 million to accelerate research that would lead to "plug-in" hybrids. Hatch is currently developing legislation to achieve this goal.

· Enhancing the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP): Calls for extending the program Hatch authored to provide health care to the children of the working poor. In addition, the budget seeks to increase funding by $5 billion over five years, which Hatch believes is not enough to maintain the program at sufficient levels. The budget also refocuses CHIP to covering low-income, uninsured children instead of covering both children and adults - a reform Hatch has advocated for many years. This is particularly vital to Utah as it seeks to add more eligible children to its program.

· Improving health care access: Advocates creating a $15,000 standard deduction for health insurance for any family covered by a basic health insurance policy. Hatch considers this a fresh idea that should be studied carefully. He supports the President's efforts to expand the availability of Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and he intends to build on the laws he authored last Congress to make HSAs more accessible and beneficial.

· Revitalizing national parks: Commits $3 billion over 10 years to improve and protect national parks in Utah and throughout the country.

· Strengthening border security: Promises $1 billion to upgrade technology and infrastructure used in controlling the border. The budget also funds hiring 3,000 new Border Patrol agents and provides states with more than $250 million to help train state and local law enforcement officials to assist in immigration enforcement and help identify and deport criminal aliens.

· Increased affordable housing: Maintains Section 8 housing at $16 billion, which will help low-income families to afford rental housing in the private market. The funding keeps the program going, but Hatch is concerned that fewer new families will be able to participate without increased funding.

· Protecting children from exploitation: Provides $13 million to pursue and punish sexual predators under Hatch's Adam Walsh Act. The funding would also help states as they work to keep the National Sex Offender Registry current and active.

Hatch is concerned about the President's plan to expand No Child Left Behind (NCLB) into high schools. However, he backs the President's call to increase Title 1, State Assessment Systems, and English Language Acquisition Support funding to help states meet the goals laid out in NCLB.

The $700 million cut to Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) also troubles Hatch, since communities across the state heavily rely on these grants for much-needed economic development projects. He will work to make sure the CDBG program has adequate funding.

In the budget, the President also advocates earmark reform and a legislative line item veto, along with ambitious entitlement reforms to address the long-term budget challenges facing the country. The budget calls for $66 billion in Medicare savings and $13 billion in Medicaid savings over five years. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that spending on Medicare and Medicaid is forecast to more than double over the next 12 years, equaling nearly 11 percent of Gross Domestic Product by 2017.

"No doubt, the only way to truly get a healthy budget is to tackle entitlement spending," Hatch said. "The President can count on my support for earmark reform, but we need to be very careful with Medicare and Medicaid. Just look at how difficult it was to get through the very modest reforms we passed in 2005. There's only so much waste and abuse you can eliminate before you start affecting care. But I've pushed for reform for many years, and I'm encouraged the President raised entitlement reform in his budget. I hope we will see an honest discussion in Congress about needed changes."

http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=1732&Month=2&Year=2007