Rock County should reject federal budget proposal
The challenges we face as a community and a nation are immense. The federal government has a role to play in our recovery and revitalization, and it must help be part of the solution—not add to the problem. Unfortunately, President Obama’s proposed budget takes us in the exact wrong direction.
It’s truly a breathtaking budget: increasing federal spending as a share of our economy to record levels; doubling our debt within a decade; and exacerbating our already unsustainable entitlement crisis.
What’s worse: the president is making the fatal flaw of increasing taxes—by $1.4 trillion—in the midst of a deepening recession. This is a tax hike on the small businesses and investors we rely on to create about 80 percent of all American jobs—the very jobs the government has already spent hundreds of billions in taxpayer dollars trying to restore.
This budget’s so-called “cap-and-trade” proposal would raise taxes by at least another $646 billion on families’ natural gas, electricity, home heating and gasoline bills. This would not only hit families in cold-weather states such as Wisconsin disproportionately hard but would further erode job growth among U.S. manufacturers. This unilateral energy tax would put Wisconsin manufacturers at a further competitive disadvantage with countries such as China that have no intention of inflicting a similar tax on their businesses. Already devastated by mass layoffs, Rock County simply can’t afford this costly “cap-and-tax” scheme.
Even with all these tax increases, the president’s spending continues to outpace revenue for the entire budget period. The 2009 budget deficit swells to $1.8 trillion—more than triple the previous record. The budget would also double the national debt in the next 8 years. Like the tax increases, this budget’s explosion of deficits and debt will consume the resources required for any hope of solid, sustained future economic growth.
President Obama challenged Republicans to offer not only criticism when we disagree but constructive alternatives. He’s right—I will continue to do just that.
As ranking member of the House Budget Committee, I put forth complete alternative budgets that reduced deficits by controlling spending—not raising taxes. Last year, I introduced legislation—“A Roadmap for America’s Future”—that reforms entitlement programs, ensures universal access to affordable health coverage, and simplifies and modernizes our tax code.
To be clear, where we can find common ground, I welcome the opportunity to work with the president. I commend him for including some good proposals in this budget, proposals that I have long advocated, including agricultural subsidy reform and honest accounting for the Alternative Minimum Tax. But if reaching compromise means pursuing policies I believe will do more harm than good, I simply can’t go along.
We can and we must do better than this budget proposal. I hope to work with my colleagues—on both sides of the aisle—to craft fiscal policies that promote solid, sustainable economic growth, limit federal spending to realistic levels and set a path that ensures our nation can prosper.
Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan serves Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District. Send mail to Janesville Constituent Services, 20 S. Main St., Suite 10, Janesville, WI 53545. To contact him by phone in Washington, D.C., call (202) 225-3031.
Mar 13, 2009 at 12:19 p.m.
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Obama has not spent that much more than Bush did, $787 billion in a stimulus compared to $700 billion in TARP. And to get upset because the debt might double in eight years, Mr. Bush just did that, as did Mr. Reagan. Where was the outrage then? Obama proposed a $3.6 trillion budget, that includes war and disaster funding, Mr. Bush had a $3.1 trillion budget last year that included neither! The bill that was passed last week for $410 billion is part of the last budget from Mr. Bush, kind of hard to count that against Obama.
Mar 11, 2009 at 9:55 p.m.
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It is interesting that Ryan puts Social Security in the category of entitlements. I can't remember when I didn't put in money each week towards MY social security all my working life. I call it insurance. It isn't my fault that the fund has been raided by Congress year after year for everything but Social Security since Johnson. Now, sonny boy, you just take Social Security out of your list of entitlements and explain to me why the TARP money (Bush's TARP) was sent to Dubai, India, China and only God knows where else? That smacks more of entitlement to me....entitlements for the rich who have interests abroad.
Mar 11, 2009 at 10:58 a.m.
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mabusejuvenalis: What is fairy tale about what I said?? Everything is fact. Obama HAS spent more than any other President in history in a couple of strikes with the pen and guess what? I've heard there's another so called Stimulus on the table! We need the rich to give us jobs, without them no jobs!! You sound like you are spraying the Mantra spouted by all the Obama followers, He's the saviour, he's gonna save the world!! Open your eyes and see what is happening here. He is spending money we don't have and also taking away some of our freedoms as well. ( or at least trying to) Also spending federal money on morally wrong things, like embyonic stem cell research!! I don't want my tax dollars going to that! Don't think I want the things he's doing to fail, I just don't see how they won't. We are on a downhill spiral and I don't see us coming up anytime soon. I think Bush spent too much too, he didn't know how to veto anything. I would hope our new president can get some chutzpah and use the veto pen! But so far, he hasn't kept many of his promises.
Mar 11, 2009 at 9:28 a.m.
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whoanellie spinning fairy tales. It's not what Obama is or isn't doing. It's what has already been done to us. This unmitigated disaster, which will take half a decade of restructuring to overcome, though built on the greed-driven myths of anti-regulation arrogance and rabid tax breaks for the rich, will be gleefully blamed on Obama in 2010 a 2012 - Folks like whoanellie already panting the mantra. Harding-Cooliodge-Hoover, Reagan-Bush-Bush: they get you everytime, while their rich bribers, megabucks trickle-downers, and off shore tax-evaders waltz blissfully away.
Mar 10, 2009 at 11:47 a.m.
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You know if you want to be rich you work for it. And then you hire more people because you can. What the present administration is doing is pro-UNemployment!! spending money they don't have and trying to tax the rich more. Then they don't do any hiring and in fact lay-off people. That is exactly what is happening in our county. Paul Ryan doesn't agree with the new administration so all you Obama lovers will attack him because you think Obama is going to save the world! Look at what he's done in the short months he's been in office! We are further in debt than any other administration ever put us in and he's only been there for 2 months! He's also broken about every promise he made and is heading us toward socialism faster than a speeding train. This is how Paul Ryan presumes to tell us what to do. The President is sure not asking, just doing what he wants! He loves the poor so much, he wants us all to be poor. But don't you even think he will give up his wealth, he only wants us to be poor, not him!!!GOD HELP US!! Paul Ryan keep fighting for us and the right thing!! (no pun intended!)
Mar 10, 2009 at 11:24 a.m.
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After 8 years of ignoring the needs of local governments, how dare Ryan presume to tell them what to do with sorely needed cash?
Mar 10, 2009 at 10:24 a.m.
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There has to be some sense of faith in the leadership to encourage spending in a recessionary period. Judging by what Obama and his party proposed, there is none.....$1.8 million earmarked for pig odor research....seriously. I think this country is in for a long 4 years......
Mar 9, 2009 at 1:35 p.m.
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Being anti-spending in a recession is being pro-unemployment.
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Tax cuts do not translate to economic demand, which is the only thing that will get an economy out of recession. Most dollars kept by consumers in tax cuts are saved or used to pay down debt (almost the same thing), but this does not contribute to demand. A recession is a period when nobody is buying anything. If you make the government spend less, you make the government and its suppliers buy less, so you are actually increasing the depth of the demand crisis.
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This is the so-called "paradox of thrift", where what is good for individual actors in an economy -- hunkering down and waiting for better times -- is actually bad for everyone. The government is the last entity that should be hunkering down.
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It's not that Republicans aren't educated. It's that they seem to think pretending not to be educated is a virtue.
Mar 9, 2009 at 12:27 p.m.
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The solution is very simple; household economics. Don't spend more than you make. What is so hard to understand about this?
Mar 9, 2009 at 12:05 p.m.
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Can't understand the fiscal mess we're in? Check out Uncle Jay's explanation at:
http://tinyurl.com/9po2so
Mar 9, 2009 at 9:28 a.m.
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After disastrous results from continuous Bush boondoggles for the rich and unbridled get-rich-cheap profligate speculation built upon the decades of the Reagan mantra to cut taxes on the rich, cut regulation of their cash cows, cut government, we are now reaping the benefit: a land built on unsupervised spending on war, on unchecked financial practices, on outmoded concepts of consumer needs, and massive house-of-cards speculation. These have now brought a depression that few of us have seen in our days. Herbert C. Hoover, fine idealogue for the rich like our Boehners and Ryans, refused government activism or infusions of capital into a desperate people's pockets, and turned a 3 1/2 year depression over to FDR. Republicans screamed doomsday threats like Ryan's here when Gore cast the deciding vote on Clinton's budget early in his administration, and that result? Eight years of unprecedented prosperity and economic growth. Bush came in and rammed massive tax cuts and even eliminations for the rich and high military waste down US throats, and we are now paying the price. Has Mr Ryan no sense of historical reckoning?
The people know the truth about Obama's tax cuts, and they now know the truth about seven years of massive concealed war expenditure. Can the Republicans come up with no other ideas than the slavish tax cuts for our millionaire betters? How much richer must the rich become before our economy improves?
Mar 9, 2009 at 5:29 a.m.
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Ho hum...more doom and gloom from Ryan, and this from a guy who stood up and saluted whenever Bush needed another phoney budget passed in a presidency that doubled our national debt and put our economy in crisis by his laissez faire policies.
No doubt about it...Ryan's got all the Republican talking points down pat. But those talking points and the disasterous policies they masked have led us to where we are today...lost jobs, lowered income, a healthcare system in shambles, a military strained to its limits, and on and on.
Yeah, Ryan...keep up the good work!
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