Oversight
CBO Analysis Reveals President’s Budget Leaves Dangerous Debt Path Unchanged
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today released its annual analysis of the president's budget proposal. CBO's analysis demonstrates that the president's budget achieves virtually no real net deficit reduction and leaves unchanged our dangerously unsustainable debt path. Although the president's plan contains a $1.8 trillion tax hike, the vast share of that sum is used to pay for a sharp increase in new government above current growth levels. CBO also projects, in 2013, a record fifth straig… Continue Reading
03.16.12
Sessions Calls Out Schumer, Dem Leaders For Brazen Political Ploys
"Washington Democrats must think themselves very clever… they have shamelessly shifted the conversation from… very real dangers to the phantom controversies that exist only in their imagination. They are desperate to distract from a record that they cannot defend." WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the attempts of Democrat leaders in Washington to deflect attention their record … Continue Reading
03.14.12
Sessions Comments On CBO Revelation Of Growing Price Tag For President’s Health Law
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued a statement today following yesterday's updated baseline from the Congressional Budget Office, which revealed that projections of the gross costs associated with President Obama's health law had increased, as did the number of people who would be dropped from their employer-sponsored coverage: "President Obama told the American people his health law would cost around $900 billion over 10 years, but … Continue Reading
03.14.12
As Deadline Nears, Budget Republicans Urge Prompt Scheduling Of Mark-up
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, was joined by every Committee Republican today in releasing a letter to Chairman Kent Conrad. Text of the letter follows: Dear Chairman Conrad: We appreciate your stated commitment to mark up a fiscal year 2013 budget resolution in the Budget Committee. We hope this will not be the third consecutive year that the Senate's Democrat majority fails to offer a budget plan for examination by the American peop… Continue Reading
03.12.12
Ahead Of Budget Mark-Up, Sessions And Johnson Call For Hearing With Sebelius Over New Health Law Revelations
"The Senate Committee on the Budget is required to report a budget resolution for fiscal year 2013 by April 1, 2012… it is critical that we have a comprehensive understanding of how the president's health care law will impact this nation's unsustainable debt course… Secretary Sebelius was [recently] unable to explain either the cause of the increase [in the cost of premium subsidies] or how the new estimate, along with the termination of the fiscally discredited CLASS Act, would a… Continue Reading
03.06.12
Sessions Responds To President’s News Conference: POTUS ‘Oddly Disconnected’ From Suffering Economy, Finances
"Stunningly, in his first press conference of the year, President Obama did not have a word to say about America's extraordinary debt threat, which puts our economy, our security, and our nation at risk… He talks about our economic health, but somehow ignores the fact that he submitted a budget plan only days ago that would grow the nation's total debt another 75 percent, increase spending and taxes, and lead us to certain financial disaster." WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), … Continue Reading
03.01.12
Sessions, Ryan: President Defying Law Requiring Action On Medicare
"The president is required by law to respond to the Medicare Trustees' annual warning, and-as a matter of fundamental leadership-is duty-bound to do so. Meanwhile, the Democratic leaders in the Senate refuse to bring a budget plan to the floor for the third straight year. The livelihoods, savings, and futures of millions of hardworking Americans are at stake, but the president and his party's leaders can't even be bothered to fulfill their most basic obligations in a time of crisis." WASHINGTON… Continue Reading
02.28.12
GAO Finds More Than $400 Billion Spent Each Year On 1,500 Duplicative, Fragmented, Inefficient Programs
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its annual report on government duplication today. This is the second year of a three-year process, during which the GAO will comprehensively review the federal government to identify duplication, fragmentation, and waste. Since the review's inception, GAO has found 66 areas of duplication encompassing over 1,500 individual programs. This year, GAO identified 32 new areas of duplication and 19 additional areas of waste and inefficiency. The repo… Continue Reading
02.28.12
‘Shocking Report’: Sessions Reacts To Identification Of Trillions In Long-Term Waste, Inefficiency
"The Democrats running Washington want higher taxes that will shrink the private sector in order to expand the wasteful public sector." WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today about a new report from the Government Accountability Office detailing over one thousand examples of waste and inefficiency in the federal government. Among other findings, the GAO report points out that only a small fraction of waste i… Continue Reading
02.28.12
Sessions Delivers Remarks At Hearing With Secretary Of Defense, Confronts Common Myths On Defense Spending
"I fear… that these budget hearings may not be a good use of your time. The Senate Democrat leadership is refusing, for the third straight year, to bring a budget plan to floor. Has the Senate Democrat majority forgotten the warning of Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who told us the debt is the greatest threat to our national security? … But the president has submitted a budget plan that will continue the unsustainable course and increase our gross federal… Continue Reading
02.17.12
Sessions Insists That Obama Budget Chief Answer Straightforward Question
"I will ask again as I did at the hearing… does the president propose to increase or decrease spending levels from those agreed to under the Budget Control Act in August? … I was shocked when you-the president's budget chief-strenuously resisted answering this fundamental question. Eventually, you responded that the president's budget did, in fact, contain net spending cuts. This response is not only factually incorrect but represents, in my view, a continuing and deliberate obfusc… Continue Reading
02.16.12
Sessions: Budget Misrepresentations ‘Deal A Severe Blow To President Obama’s Credibility’
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued a statement today following Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's testimony before the Committee: "The Administration continues to persist in the duplicity that this budget cuts spending when it increases spending by $1.5 trillion over the levels in current law. Even giving them credit for reducing war costs-all of which were borrowed-does not change the mathematical fact that spending is going… Continue Reading
02.16.12
Sessions Delivers Opening Statement At Budget Hearing With Treasury Secretary Geithner
"Secretary Geithner… you are a capable and loyal member of the administration. But, more fundamentally, you are a servant of the American people. You have an opportunity today to help us understand both the dangerous unsustainability of our fiscal path, and the depth of change needed to right our course… History will judge our conversation today. Do you believe that the president's budget provides the solution to our fiscal problems? Do you believe that $11.2 trillion in new fede… Continue Reading
02.15.12
The Obama 2013 Budget: A Summary And Analysis
The president's 2013 budget claims it will result in declining deficits from $1.3 trillion in 2012 (8.5 percent of GDP) to $0.9 trillion in 2013 (5.5 percent of GDP) to no less than $0.6 trillion in any subsequent year. The budget fails the pledge the president made on February 23, 2009 at his Fiscal Responsibility Summit: And that's why today I'm pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office.[1] But that is not happening in 2012-the last year of this … Continue Reading
02.14.12
Sessions To WH Budget Chief: You Work For The American People, Not The Obama Campaign
"Given the gravity of our fiscal crisis-and Mr. Zeints' obligation to present honest facts to the public-I asked him whether, if he was shown to be wrong, he would resign. I will soon be sending him a letter expressing my concerns from today's hearing and pressing for a straightforward answer to a straightforward question. Mr. Zeints must remember-he works for the American people, not the Obama campaign. And the American people have a right to know the truth." WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessio… Continue Reading
02.13.12
Honest Accounting Reveals President’s Budget Makes No Alteration To Disastrous Debt Course
The president claims that his fiscal plan will reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years, including the previously enacted $1 trillion Budget Control Act cuts that are part of current law. An honest analysis reveals, however, that the president's budget would only reduce the deficit by about $300 billion in comparison to what was agreed to in the Budget Control Act last August. In other words, the White House has utterly failed to meet even the minimum target they have identified … Continue Reading
02.13.12
Sessions On President’s Budget: ‘One Of Most Spectacular Fiscal Cover-Ups In American History’
"The White House claims they have introduced a plan to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction… But these assertions rely on a calculated series of budget gimmicks. An honest analysis proves that the president's plan achieves only $273 billion in total deficit reduction over ten years… Under this plan, we will accumulate $11 trillion in new gross debt… The vision the president has laid out today leads to a bigger government, a smaller middle class, and a painful debt crisis… Continue Reading
02.13.12
HBC And SBC Republican Summary Of President's FY2013 Budget
The President has not merely ducked from our fiscal and economic challenges, but-with his fourth straight budget flop-he has advanced policies that dangerously accelerate the crisis before us. His gimmick-filled budget fails to reduce the fast-rising debt, permanently entrenches unsustainable levels of government spending, and erects new barriers to upward mobility. His plan stifles economic growth, threatens the health and retirement security of millions of Americans, and commits the next gener… Continue Reading
02.10.12
Gimmicks The President May Use To Claim Trillions In Phony Budget Savings
When the president releases his budget on Monday, February 13th, he will most likely claim some large amount of "savings" in an effort to create the appearance that his administration is actually committed to cutting spending. However, we know from gimmicks in the president's past proposals that he may claim to "save" $3 trillion with no savings at all (which are properly defined as spending cuts). The only deficit reduction would stem from tax hikes that sustain wasteful spending. Here is how … Continue Reading
02.09.12
Obama’s Budget Gimmicks Produce Phony Deficit Claims
President Obama has submitted three annual budgets. The reestimates of those budgets by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) demonstrate they were based on unrealistic baselines and faulty estimates of budgetary effects of the president's proposed policies. In fact, CBO's analyses show that the president has, on average, understated his 10-year deficits by almost 20 percent. The Administration's repeated under-estimation of the president's budget deficits can be attributed to three factors: … Continue Reading
