A springtime ritual in Washington is upon us:  approval of the new federal budget. Earlier in the year, I gained a seat on the Budget Committee so I could work on our common agenda – keeping our country safe, restarting our sluggish economy, ensuring quality health care for all, improving our kids’ education and doing this all in a fiscally responsible manner.

The budget represents something much more profound than mere numbers.  Our budget is a reflection of our priorities.  Through the federal budget we demonstrate our values, our commitments to those less fortunate in our society, and our ideas for building a better America for our children and grandchildren. 

The President’s budget contains a number of extremely controversial proposals – massive tax cuts that will dramatically increase the federal deficit, Medicare restructuring that will start privatizing the program, and cuts in vital programs like Medicaid, environmental protection and education.  Through weeks of hearings with top Administration officials, I raised questions about the proposals and their potential effects.

            Last Wednesday, my committee debated and voted on the Republican budget proposal in a 15 hour-long meeting.  That proposal echoed the President’s call for huge tax cuts, about $1.5 Trillion, which will mostly go to the wealthiest members of our society.   It also calls for even larger spending cuts than the President’s plan to finance some of the tax cuts.  These cuts would hit virtually everything, except for national defense -- including veteran’s health programs, Medicare and education.

            The Republican plan also left many of the most important challenges facing our country unmet. 

For example:

• Funding for critical port security measures the Coast Guard has called for are left out, leaving a gaping hole in our homeland security efforts;
• A prescription drug benefit for seniors is underfunded by at least half of what is needed.  The Administration’s plan also forces seniors into unworkable and unavailable private health plans like the Medicare HMOs that have abandoned Central Coast seniors;
• Federal assistance to our schools is woefully lacking, despite passage of the President’s “Leave No Child Behind” legislation.  

Shockingly, my research shows that this new round of tax cuts the President is calling for will result in the largest federal budget deficits ever, averaging $400 Billion annually.  These deficits will continue for at least the rest of the decade.  In addition, these figures, as bad as they are, do not contain any of the estimated $100 billion necessary for the misguided war in Iraq, nor for the occupation and rebuilding of that country. 

Deficits of this size and duration will mean stunted long-term economic growth, fewer good jobs for our workers and a mountain of new debt for our children to pay off.  After huge struggles to rein in federal deficits just a short time ago, the Administration and its supporters in Congress are putting our economic future at risk with this reckless budget.

If this irresponsible plan is enacted it will mean:

• Higher interest rates for everything from car loans to credit cards;
• Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars annually spent simply to pay the interest on our debt, not to help address critical national priorities like improving our schools;
• An underfunded Medicare and Social Security, just when millions of baby boomers begin retiring at the end of this decade. 

In an effort to restore common sense to this process, I offered and supported a variety of amendments to the Republican plan.  These proposals would have dramatically scaled back the unaffordable tax cuts and replaced them with common sense proposals economists agree would help jumpstart the economy:  immediate tax incentives for business to spur new investment and rebates to taxpayers to stimulate new consumer spending. 

I offered the critical amendment to ensure all seniors have access to voluntary prescription drug coverage that is affordable and available in all areas of the country.  Medicare is simply not a complete health insurance plan without drug coverage.  This is a national priority that has gone unmet for far too long and I believe we should delay any serious tax cuts until this proposal is adopted.

 I also supported amendments to make the federal government meet its commitment to help our schools to educate all our children, including the disabled; protect critically important habitat in Alaska from new oil drilling; help our states meet their exploding budget deficits; and stop the proposed $15 billion in cuts to veteran’s health care.

Unfortunately, all of these common sense proposals were defeated in partisan votes in the Budget Committee.  The only amendment able to break the partisan deadlock was one I worked on to stop the President’s proposed cut to local school districts – those near military bases like Vandenberg and Port Hueneme – that educate the children of our military families.

            This week the full House will take up the debate.  Along with many of my colleagues on the Budget Committee, I will be presenting a comprehensive alternative budget to correct the major deficiencies in the House leadership plan.  I hope we can look past partisanship and find common ground on a budget plan to meet our country’s most vital priorities.