July 1, 2003 - Today, U.S. Representative Mike Doyle (PA-14) condemned the budget recently passed by Congress as misguided and irresponsible.

“The federal government’s budget is, first and foremost, a statement about our nation’s priorities - or at least the party in power’s priorities,” Doyle said today. “This administration and the leadership in the House and Senate have produced a budget that expresses some very clear priorities. Unfortunately, providing help for mainstream Americans is a low priority for this administration.”

Doyle hosted a public hearing at Hill House today that explored the impact that the recently passed federal budget will have on people in western Pennsylvania. Panelists included representatives of a number of regional social service providers and advocacy groups, who testified about the impact that federal budget cuts would have on the most needy people in western Pennsylvania.

Communities in western Pennsylvania depend heavily on federal funding to provide health care, housing, education, food and nutrition assistance, income security, and a host of social services to the poor, the elderly, the disabled, and the unemployed. Nearly $2 trillion in federal tax cuts over the last 2 years have produced record federal budget deficits and threaten to dramatically reduce the amount of federal funding available for such assistance. The difficulty of finding the necessary funding for these programs is expected to grow in the next few years as the recently enacted tax cuts are phased in.

“These tax cuts will force cuts in federal priorities like health care, education, transportation, medical research, job training, and programs for seniors,” Doyle observed. “The panelists’ testimony today sharply demonstrated that the price of passing massive tax cuts for the wealthy is the chronic underfunding of the critical services that the federal government provides to local communities like ours.”

A report containing the testimony presented at the hearing will be released in the near future.

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