Hill Response to Bush's State of the Union Address

Washington, DC - January 20, 2004) Congressman Baron Hill issued the following statement in response to the president's State of the Union Address:

"Tonight the president addressed the many challenges we face as a nation. I agree with him on some issues and disagree with him on others. Regardless of whether we see eye to eye on every issue, we must work together to find solutions to these issues for the benefit of all Hoosiers and all Americans.

I share the president's gratitude for our men and women in uniform in Iraq and throughout the world. They are doing a tremendous job and should be commended. Hard work remains in Iraq and the president has mentioned his willingness to address the serious challenges ahead. I urge the administration to redouble its efforts to internationalize the reconstruction efforts. Administration officials have been meeting with international organizations - including the U.N. - to ease the burden on American soldiers. This is a step in the right direction.

In addition, I am pleased to hear the president address the soaring costs of health care in this country. While I have yet to see concrete proposals from the White House, I'm glad the president has decided to enter the debate. I've been hearing about this issue from my constituents for several years. I am hopeful the president will negotiate in good faith with Congress to achieve real relief from health care costs for all Americans.

I also want to commend the president for addressing the need for worker training in this country. The U.S. workforce has lost 2.5 million jobs since President Bush took office and Hoosier workers have been particularly hard hit. I will work with the president to provide worker training in order to get people back into the workforce. Coupled with worker training, we must work to prevent jobs from being exported overseas by creating new incentives that help small business expand and encourage manufacturers to create and keep jobs here at home.

However, I have been troubled by President Bush's lack of leadership in tackling the exploding deficit. The president has promised to cut the deficit in half within five years. However, under the president's plan, deficits will remain at unacceptably high levels of more than $300 billion per year through the decade. I would like to work with the president to get Congress and the White House back on the path of fiscal responsibility by holding down spending and balancing the budget.

Unfortunately, in dealing with the deficit the president continues to press for irresponsible tax policy and has proposed several new expensive spending initiatives. It is reckless to talk of a price tag of $1 trillion to make tax cuts permanent while at the same time proposing to spend billions of dollars on space travel and exploration. Continuing to blindly cut taxes and spend with reckless abandon is not fiscally responsible and damaging to our long-term fiscal heath, and will make it more difficult to deal with our mounting commitments to Medicare and Social Security beneficiaries.

We must eliminate our deficits and pay down our national debt so that future generations are not left paying our bills. As I have said many times, Congress and the administration need to sit down, put everything on the table and get our economic house in order. We shouldn't mortgage our future to pay for today."