Hoyer On President's 2006 Budget

Hoyer On President's 2006 Budget:

"Marylanders have reasons to be concerned"
WASHINGTON - Congressman Steny Hoyer (D-MD) released the following statement today highlighting the damaging effects President Bush's Fiscal Year 2006 budget will have on the state of Maryland:

"I am pleased that the President's budget includes some funding for programs that are important to our state such as $40.7 million for VXX Presidential Helicopter facility and $5.8 million for the Multi-Mission Maritime Aircraft test facility both located at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station in St. Mary's County; $127.6 million for FDA Consolidation at White Oak; and $8.5 million for NOAA's new Center for Weather and Climate Prediction in College Park.

"However, overall, the President's budget proposal for fiscal year 2006 will have dire implications for our nation and our state and Marylanders have reasons to be concerned. Our state depends on the federal government to support programs and services to educate our children, protect our environment, provide healthcare to our people and provide assistance to our first responders.

"Not only does this budget proposal make drastic cuts to the programs our state relies on, it deliberately excludes the trillions of dollars that would be needed to implement the President's Social Security privatization plan and the billions of dollars that are needed to fund the war effort in Iraq - further masking the cuts that will be stomached by state and local governments. This budget makes clear that the President is making the wrong choices for Maryland and I will fight to restore these cuts and work to ensure our budget is a reflection of the interests and values of our people.

FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

"I am very pleased the President has included a fair pay adjustment for the brave men and women of the armed services, yet his failure to equally recognize the hard work of America's civilian federal employees by proposing the same pay adjustment is unacceptable.

"Hundreds of thousands of federal employees work side-by-side everyday with the military and their efforts are important to keeping America safe. Pay parity is an important tool in ensuring civilian federal employees are paid fairly, which is essential to attracting and keeping quality employees. For all the lip service this Administration pays to fiscal responsibility and efficient government, it continually fails to understand that recruiting and retaining the best federal employees is an important part of making sure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely and carefully.

"I once again call on the President to respect civilian federal employees' hard work, as well as Congress's support for the bipartisan principle of pay parity. I will continue to lead this fight in Congress in the coming year.

EDUCATION

"Unfortunately, the President has proposed a budget that fails to keep the bipartisan promise of No Child Left Behind, the landmark education law that aimed to increase performance and accountability in all public schools. Not only does the President fail to provide all the resources that he agreed were necessary to implement that law, his budget actually cuts overall Education funding by 1%, and eliminates a slew of education programs providing critical assistance to our children. This budget falls $12 billion short of what was promised when No Child Left Behind was signed into law three years ago, and if adopted, President Bush will have provided $39 billion less than he agreed public schools should receive.

ENVIRONMENT

"The President's request for fiscal year 2006 for the Chesapeake Bay Program Office fails to even keep up with the rate of inflation with an increase of only $100,000 from $20.8 million to $20.9 million. It also has eliminated or cut additional programs crucial to cleaning up the Bay including Farm Bill Conservation programs that help farmers reduce agricultural runoff entering the Bay, the Small Watershed Grant program, and his budget drastically cuts the Clean Water State Revolving Program. In November of last year, I joined the Maryland delegation in calling on the Bush Administration to commit $1 billion in its fiscal year 2006 budget towards restoring the Bay's water quality, but this budget falls far short of that goal.

NASA

"The President has requested a 2.4% increase for NASA, however, he has eliminated funding for a new servicing mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Experts agree that Hubble has dramatically changed our understanding of the universe and produced thousands of extraordinary discoveries. I will fight to ensure that a new servicing mission is adequately funded and supported by the Congress.

MEDICAID

"The President's Budget proposes to cut $60 billion from Medicaid, and these cuts will put tremendous pressure on states to reduce eligibility and benefits, at a time when states like Maryland are already struggling to pay their state share of Medicaid costs. Federal cut backs will have drastically negative consequences for vulnerable populations such as low-income children, the elderly, and people with disabilities, who rely on this critical safety net health care program - at a time when 45 million Americans are without health insurance.

HOMELAND SECURITY

"I am disappointed that President Bush proposed a $150 million decrease for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program which helps provide training and equipment to local fire departments and eliminates funding for the SAFER Grant Program which helps fire departments hire new firefighters, recruit and retain volunteer fire fighters, and provide relief to the thousands of local fire stations across the country that are currently operating short of staff. Our local fire departments have benefited greatly from the Fire Grant program, and at a time when we all agree our first responders are critical to our homeland security, it doesn't make sense to cut back on this program. As one of the original sponsors of these two programs, I will fight for greater support of our firefighters.

"Furthermore, the budget guts funding for programs that assist our local law enforcement agencies by eliminating the COPS the Universal Hiring Program, the most crucial and effective part of the COPS program; the Edward Byrne Memorial State and Local Law Enforcement Assistance program, a grant program that provides anti-violence, anti-drug and crime prevention grants; additional Department of Justice grant programs that direct federal funds straight to our local communities; and more than $100 million for the HIDTA program.

VETERANS

"The President continues to break our nation's promise to our veterans. He has proposed a $250 annual enrolment fee and increased co-payments for outpatient pharmacy services vets raising health care costs for hundreds of thousands of veterans.

DEFICITS

"In four short years, this Administration has turned record budget surpluses into deficits as far as the eye can see, including a projected record deficit of $427 billion this year that is actually $162 billion larger - or $589 billion - because the Social Security surplus masks its true size. Even worse, this Administration has simply not proposed a real plan to restore fiscal discipline to the federal budget. More than 40 percent of the proposed deficit reduction in the President's budget would be achieved not by tough choices on taxes and spending but by the growth of Social Security surpluses. And many of the spending cuts the President has proposed will be rejected outright by Members of the President's own Party.

"What is absolutely stunning is that this President has told the nation that Social Security is nearing 'bankruptcy,' when the reality is that his own economic policies are bankrupting our nation, immorally forcing our children and grandchildren to pay this generation's bills, and threatening our long-term national security.

"Democrats are committed to restoring fiscal discipline to the federal budget process by returning to the pay-as-you-go policies which produced budget surpluses in the 1990s. The President's budget seems to be little more than a public relations gimmick that permits the Administration to masquerade for a day as fiscally responsible."

http://www.hoyer.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=10066