Conrad Statement on President Obama's FY 2013 Budget

Statement

"President Obama's budget would continue to move the nation in the right direction. For the near-term, it correctly focuses on strengthening the economy and creating jobs. That is the right near-term priority. Leading economists, including the Federal Reserve Chairman and the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, have urged policymakers to avoid taking steps that could harm the recovery. The President's budget follows this sound advice.

"The reality is the President inherited a fiscal and economic disaster. And his policies have played a critical role in the successful federal response that has brought us back from the brink and put the nation on the road to recovery. We were losing more than 800,000 private-sector jobs a month when the President took office. We are now gaining more than 200,000 private-sector jobs a month. That is a dramatic turnaround. And the President deserves considerable credit for that success.

"The President's budget would bring the deficit down as a share of the economy from 8.5 percent in 2012 to 2.8 percent in 2022. That represents real progress. Importantly, the budget calls for everyone to share in the burden of deficit reduction. Over the next ten years, it includes a number of significant savings proposals from the Administration's September submission to the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction. But we will need to do more to put the nation on a sustainable long-term fiscal path.

"The only true way forward is through a comprehensive and balanced deficit reduction agreement. We need to come together on a plan that modernizes our tax system, reforms our entitlement programs, and attacks wasteful spending. President Obama has demonstrated that he wants to reach such an agreement. Now others are going to have to be willing to step up and be part of the solution."

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