Congressman Doyle Votes for Balanced Budget with Balanced Priorities

Pittsburgh, PA –  U.S. Representative Mike Doyle (PA-14) today voted in favor of a federal budget for Fiscal Year 2008 that would balance the federal budget over the next 5 years while providing additional funding for high priority domestic programs like education, health care, and veterans.

“The resolution that House Democrats passed today will produce a balanced budget with balanced priorities,” Congressman Doyle said after the vote. “It’s a shame that, even after six years of financial misrule, House Republicans still refuse to acknowledge the fact that you can’t finance two wars, cut taxes dramatically, and balance the budget at the same time.”

The budget passed by the House today on a party-line vote would reach balance in five years while increasing funding for children’s health care, education, and veterans’ health care. In addition, it would provide tax relief for middle-income Americans while providing the level of funding for defense and homeland security that the President requested.

The budget adopted by the House would provide $50 billion more for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) over the next 5 years, allowing that program to provide health insurance coverage to millions of uninsured children across the country, including many of the 280,000 children in Pennsylvania who currently lack health insurance.

The budget adopted by the House would increase funding for education by $5 billion next year, rather than cut education funding by $1.5 billion, as proposed in the President’s budget.

This budget would increase funding for veterans health care programs by $3.5 billion next year and by $32 billion over the next 5 years. This increase is essential to ensure that all of the men and women who serve our country in Iraq and Afghanistan, including more than 58,000 Pennsylvanians so far, get the health care services they need and deserve. It would also provide funding to reduce the current backlog in veterans disability claims.

The budget approved by the House would provide 6 percent more than the President proposed on homeland security – restoring the cuts that the President proposed in first responder and terrorism prevention programs.

The budget the House approved would also restore the cuts in federal nutrition, low-income home heating assistance, and community development that the President proposed earlier this year.

The House-passed budget includes funding to pay for middle class tax cuts like extension of the child tax credit, marriage penalty relief, extension of the 10 percent individual income tax bracket, elimination of most estate taxes, and the extension of the deduction for state and local sales taxes. Another provision of the budget keeps the AMT – the Alternative Minimum Tax – from ensnaring middle income taxpayers, whom it was never intended to cover. If such a provision isn’t adopted, more than 800,000 middle class families in Pennsylvania will have to pay higher federal income taxes.

The House-approved budget does not raise taxes, but it does increase federal revenues by going after tax cheats and cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse in government programs.

The biggest difference between the House Democrats’ 2008 budget and the budgets adopted by the House under Republican control over the last 6 years is that this budget is governed by the “pay as you go” rule pushed through by House Democrats in the first 100 hours of the new Congress. That rule requires that any entitlement spending increases or tax cuts be offset, so that they don’t increase the federal budget deficit, which has run into the hundreds of billion dollars annually for a number of years now. Between 2001 and 2007, the Republican-controlled Congress increased our national debt by $2.8 trillion.

Over the next 5 years, the budget approved by the House of Representatives would spend $234 billion less than the budget request the President submitted to Congress two months ago.

“By adopting this budget, Congress can restore fiscal responsibility to the budget process while expanding health care coverage for our children, providing our soldiers and veterans with the care they have earned, investing in education so that our economy will keep growing, working towards an energy independent and environmentally sustainable America, and improving our homeland security,” Congressman Doyle said.

“We can dramatically improve the quality of life for most Americans if we just stop cutting taxes for households with incomes of $200,000 or more,” Congressman Doyle observed. “The choice seems pretty simple to me – my priorities are clear.”

The Senate adopted its own version of the Fiscal Year 2008 federal budget resolution on March 23. Now, the House and Senate must work out the differences between the two bills. Congress is required by law to complete action on a final budget resolution for the following fiscal year by April 15.

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