Statement of Senator Clinton on the Bush Administration's FY2006 Budget
Statement of Senator Clinton on the Bush Administration's FY2006 Budget
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (NY) issued the following statement in response to today's release of the Bush Administration's Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Proposal:
In his newly proposed budget, the President hides the costs of his proposals but has no qualms about openly slashing funding for services vital to New York's security, health, and families. Though he leaves his far more expensive priorities intact, the President's budget dramatically cuts programs that support schools, hospitals, veterans, police hiring, the working poor, transportation infrastructure and our environment.
The President says that he is in favor of fiscal responsibility, but a closer look at the details of his new budget proves that this is not true. Despite making significant cuts to programs important to New Yorkers, the President has elevated his priorities above the need for spending discipline and requested that Congress approve a budget that acknowledges a 2005 budget deficit of $427 billion, the largest in American history.
This budget is the result of policies that have put our fiscal direction on an unsustainable course. When President Bush took office, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicted that by 2011, we would have a budget surplus of $5.6 trillion. After four years of the Bush Administration, the CBO now predicts that we'll have a budget deficit of $2.58 trillion in 2011. And if we add in the costs of the President's new budget proposals, we will have a whopping $4.6 trillion deficit in 2011.
While the President preaches fiscal responsibility and the goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, his actions prove that his intentions lie elsewhere. In promoting his misplaced priorities, he seeks to cut funding for successful programs that directly benefit millions of New Yorkers. Even with these harmful cuts, however, the deficit would still grow dramatically as part of a budget plan that is simply not credible.
The President's five-year budget window masks the real costs of his priorities:
The President's budget fails to account for most of the $1.6 trillion over ten years it would cost to make the tax cuts permanent. Most of the costs for those priorities come due after 2010. Because the budget deficit projections end in 2010, they don't show the true costs of his tax cuts.
The President's budget fails to account for the $2.2 trillion it would cost to privatize Social Security over the next ten years.
The President's budget fails to account for the cost of our continuing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan after 2005.
The President's budget fails to account for the cost of appropriately fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax. Without an adjustment, many middle class households will see their tax burdens increase. Addressing this would cost $500 billion over the next decade, none of which is accounted for in the President's budget.
The truth of the matter is that the President's policies are incompatible with the goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009. The President has chosen the path of continued fiscal irresponsibility, and is willing to pass on its costs to our children and their children. Americans deserve better. It is possible to insist on a budget that is both fiscally responsible and that meets the needs and priorities of the American people. It is possible to invest in economic and social progress without creating unbearable debt.
If the President insists on maintaining the course he has laid out in his deeply flawed budget, we in the Congress must do what it takes to send back to him a budget that restores both fiscal restraint and adequate funding for programs that meet the priorities and needs of New Yorkers and all Americans. I look forward to working with members of both parties to give the American people the budget they deserve.
http://clinton.senate.gov/~clinton/news/2005/2005207C04.html