Paul Ryan: President’s Budget Ensures Debt Crisis and Decline

President’s budget reveals broken promises, failed leadership and a diminished future, February 13, 2012

WASHINGTON – Earlier today, President Obama introduced his Fiscal Year 2013 budget request, calling for record levels of spending increases, tax hikes, and debt. The President’s budget breaks his promise to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term, and it breaks his obligation to all Americans to confront the nation’s spending-driven debt crisis.

In response to the President’s failure of leadership, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin issued the following statement:

“President Obama’s irresponsible budget is a recipe for a debt crisis and the decline of America. His refusal to honestly confront our nation’s most pressing challenges does real harm to the economic security of millions of American families. The $1.9 trillion tax increase proposed in his budget will make it harder for businesses to create jobs and for workers to spur economic growth.

“This budget does nothing to prevent the bankruptcy of critical programs, threatening the health and retirement security of current and future seniors. Worse, it continues the President’s policy of letting an unaccountable board of bureaucrats cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for seniors. The broken promises and recycled gimmicks contained in this budget have dramatically widened this President’s growing credibility deficit.

“Our families, seniors, children and grandchildren deserve better than this reckless budget and this dismal failure of leadership. As Chairman of the House Budget Committee, I will continue to work with my colleagues – from both parties where possible – to advance bold solutions that lift our crushing burden of debt and ensure a future of opportunity, growth and prosperity.”

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Key facts from the President’s budget:

Spends Too Much:

$47 trillion of government spending over the next decade

Proposes a net increase over current spending projections

Taxes Too Much:

$1.9 trillion in new taxes

Raises taxes, not to pay down the debt, but to fuel more government spending

Borrows Too Much:

Four straight years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits; no plan to reduce the debt

Gross debt at the end of FY22: $25.9 trillion

Budget Gimmicks & Broken Promises

Overstates new deficit reduction by taking credit for savings already enacted

Exploits discredited budget gimmick by “not spending” nearly $1 trillion that was never going to be spent.

A bicameral fact sheet prepared by the House Budget Committee and Senate Budget Committee:
budget.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=280065

House Budget Committee hearings this week to review the President’s FY13 budget:

- Wednesday, February 15 – 10:00 AM – OMB Acting Director Jeffrey Zients

- Thursday, February 16 – 2:00 PM – Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner

- To learn more: budget.house.gov/HearingSchedule/

TEXT and IMAGE CREDIT: HouseBudgetCommittee Committee on the Budget U.S. House of Representatives 207 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 Phone: 202.226.7270 Email: Budget.Republicans@mail.house.gov