President’s Budget Fails to Foster Jobs, Economic Growth

The President’s budget ignores our responsibility to the country to foster jobs and economic growth by setting aside money now for the Social Security and Medicare tidal wave that is coming, and projecting accurate budget deficits.  As I have repeatedly proposed, we should immediately roll back the tax cuts for those making $200,000 or more per year and follow the recently restored pay-as-you-go budget rules that require new or increased spending to be offset by equivalent spending cuts.  This could cut the deficit in half in two years.

Instead of using realistic budget projections, the President’s projected budget deficits will remain around $248 billion through at least 2009.  With Social Security surpluses excluded, this balloons to over $400 billion per year.  To address this imminent problem, we should set aside money now by rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy and following pay-as-you-go rules.  This would enable us to stop raiding the Social Security surplus and reduce the budget deficit by half in two years, putting us back on the road to fully balancing the budget.

A balanced budget would enable us to live up to our responsibility to keep interest rates low and allow the private sector to create new jobs. This would give the federal government the revenues it needs to address the major issues we face, including insuring the 46 million Americans without health insurance, providing retirement security for the 69 million Americans without pensions, and fixing the alternative minimum tax. 

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