U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today about President Obama's mid-year budget update, which is required by law to be submitted to Congress every year no later than July 16:
"President Obama is currently running a campaign ad saying he has a plan to "pay down the debt in a balanced way.' He has made this claim in public remarks as well. But his updated budget--submitted two weeks after the legal deadline--reveals just how dramatically false this claim is. These ads ought to be pulled down.
His updated budget proposes a $10.6 trillion increase in gross debt through 2022, with debt remaining permanently above 100 percent of GDP. The picture in the out-years looks even bleaker. No change is proposed to our dangerously unsustainable debt course.
The President's claim his tax hikes are for deficit reduction is shown to be false as well. His budget proposes to spend $46.2 trillion over ten years--an increase of nearly one-and-half trillion dollars above the current law baseline and a 57 percent increase above today's spending levels. The President's $1.8 trillion tax increase is not used to reduce the deficit but to fund this massive increase above what we are currently planning to spend.
Meanwhile, the President's party in the Senate has refused to even produce a budget plan at all for three straight years.
America can have robust economic growth--and avert a catastrophic debt crisis--but it requires a credible fiscal plan and the leadership necessary to achieve it."
Source: http://www.sessions.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressShop.NewsReleases&ContentRecord_id=c9d905c3-dfdd-253c-28e9-2d410c1bf65f&Region_id=&Issue_id=
