Taxing, Spending and Borrowing is not the Right Answer

Statement

Taxing, Spending and Borrowing is not the Right Answer

Just days after the President made his address to a Joint Session of Congress he submitted his first budget proposal. This proposal sets forth President Obama's priorities and vision over the next ten years. While I stand willing to work with the President and my Democrat colleagues in Congress to move the economy forward and provide relief to America's families and small businesses, this budget is quite alarming - not so much for what it says, as much as what it will cost.

American families are feeling the pain of the current economic recession. I believe there are things that we can and, frankly, must do to help ease that pain. I could not support the so-called "stimulus" bill because it was loaded with far too much wasteful spending, placed too much emphasis on bigger government, and did not do nearly enough to encourage short-term job creation. I did support a bill that targets just job growth. A bill that cost half as much and would have, according to the experts, created even more jobs. Just last week, the House continued its free spending ways by passing the $410 billion "omnibus" spending bill, which funds government programs. That represents an 8.7% increase over 2008 funding levels - on top of the increases contained in the "stimulus" bill.

We cannot borrow, tax, and spend our way to economic prosperity. History has proven that increasing taxes and debt funded outrageous government spending are job killers not job creators.

The President's budget proposes to double the national debt. Under this budget, our deficit would top $1.75 TRILLION this year. That is several times larger than the previous largest deficit in the history of our country. The Obama budget calls for another deficit of $1.2 TRILLION next year. To pay for at least some of this increased spending, the President proposes to increase taxes by $1.4 trillion over ten years. The brunt of this new tax burden will be borne by small business owners who file their taxes as individuals. Small businesses create more than 70% of the jobs in this country; does it really make sense to increase taxes on this vital economic engine? Also hurt by the proposed tax increases will be family farmers, retirees, 401k owners, as well as energy consumers and middle class families.

This budget does nothing to tighten the federal belt and President Obama's promise to cut the deficit in half sounds good. But, a $500 billion annual deficit would still qualify as one of the largest in history.

Economic projections over a ten-year period rarely turn out to be correct and unforeseen events like war and recession are never planned but often impact the best-laid plans. Nevertheless, the amount of borrowing, spending and taxing contemplated by this document are historically astounding.

Every parent and grandparent must ask themselves how much money are we prepared to borrow from our children. They will be left holding the tab.

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