Barletta Statement on Obama Budget Proposal

Press Release

Congressman Lou Barletta, PA-11, today issued the following statement regarding President Obama's budget proposal that tops $4 trillion for Fiscal Year 2016:

"The late Senator Everett Dirksen was often credited with a quote that went something like, "a billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.' Well, now we're talking about trillions of dollars, and they seem to be adding up awfully fast.

"The president's gigantic request would increase spending and somehow simultaneously claim that it is fiscally prudent. This is not an idea that I can support as delivered, especially at a time when wages have stagnated. Like many in Congress, I also want to end the sequestration spending caps, which were originally the president's own suggestion, and I want to preserve social programs for those who truly need them. But it is reckless to suggest increasing spending without accountability to the taxpayers and some way to ensure that such safety nets will be secure in the future.

"To be sure, there are some areas of agreement. I also believe we must prioritize the rebuilding and improvement of our infrastructure. In Pennsylvania alone, we have more than 5,000 structurally deficient bridges which present a severe public safety problem. We should have a detailed discussion about dedicated funding mechanisms for much-needed improvements to our transportation infrastructure systems. Additionally, I also believe that the middle class desperately needs tax relief, as many families are still finding it difficult to raise families in an economy that continues to sputter, particularly in my part of Pennsylvania. These are among the areas where we can find common ground.

"All that said, I disagree with the president's premise that raising taxes on anyone will stimulate the economy. To increase taxes on capital gains would be to discourage private investment in enterprise and entrepreneurship. And without investment, there will be a drag on job creation. The president likes to brag about the high-flying numbers of the stock market, while at the same time proposing to punish the very people who caused the Dow Jones Industrial Average to rise in the first place. If you put obstacles in front of risk-taking, investors will turn away, and the economy will not grow.

"The president proposes to triple the combined aid package -- to $1 billion -- to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. These are the same nations who either turned blind eyes toward the illegal immigrant influx we experienced at our southern border last year, or, as many have concluded, actively assisted in and encouraged the mass exodus from their own countries. The leadership of these three nations helped fuel our illegal immigration problems here at home, and the president's incredible recommendation is to reward them with even more foreign aid. I have, in fact, argued that we suspend aid to those nations.

"Further, in the House, we have already voted to defund the president's executive actions to provide amnesty for illegal immigrants by our recent passage of the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill. I would hope to see similar restrictions in place in anything that passes the legislature again. Likewise, I will continue to seek every avenue to defund, repeal, and replace the job-killing, cost-increasing, health care-limiting mistake that was Obamacare.

"Thankfully, the Constitution allocates the power of the purse strings to the Congress, not to the executive branch. I am certain that the House will take all of the president's proposals into consideration and produce our own spending plan so that the true debate over our shared priorities will begin."

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