February 7, 2005

Washington, D.C. – February 7, 2005 – U.S. Representative Mike Doyle (PA-14) roundly condemned the budget that President Bush sent to Congress today.

“President Bush has proposed a budget for the next four years that would increase the deficit, drive up interest rates, choke off economic growth, and make devastating cuts in programs that are critically important to the people of southwestern Pennsylvania,” Congressman Doyle said today.

“We all want to leave a better world for our children – a world that is more prosperous and more secure,” Congressman Doyle added. “Unfortunately, this budget would do just the opposite. It would undermine our children’s economic future, eliminate their retirement security, and leave them to deal with a backbreaking burden of debt.”

“For the third year in a row, the Administration’s budget calls for a new record-breaking deficit – $427 billion. What’s worse, the President’s budget paints a grossly misleading impression of its impact by providing no deficit figures after 2010 and by omitting the full long-term costs of the President’s policies on Social Security privatization, taxes, and operations in Iraq. All told, the Administration’s proposals will add more than $4 trillion dollars to the deficit over the next ten years.

“The President can’t keep cutting taxes and increasing spending on homeland security and expect the economy to keep chugging along. That’s what got our economy into trouble in the 1960s – and no one wants to live through the stagflation of the 1970s again.”

“Moreover, this budget fails to meet our obligation to take care of our veterans, seniors, disabled, and children – and it would fail to make the investments in science, education, and infrastructure that our country needs to prosper in the coming years. It’s a straightforward and simple-minded continuation of the wrong choices and misplaced priorities that have created record deficits and rising debt over the last four years.

“In short, the President’s budget proposal would make the deficit problem worse and move the country in the wrong direction. I will work in the coming weeks and months to pass a budget that better reflects the interests of the American people.

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