Oversight
SBC Summary Of The House Payroll Holiday And Jobs Bill
The House bill extends the temporary two percentage point payroll holiday for an additional year and relies largely on reductions in mandatory spending to offset its cost. There are no tax hikes. Major Budgetary Provisions Extends for one year the temporary Social Security payroll holiday. Increases the incentive to expand and hire by extending 100 percent expensing so that businesses can immediately deduct the cost of an investment from their income. Extends unemployment benefits to 59 w… Continue Reading
12.13.11
Sessions On Fox: President’s Policies Threaten The Middle Class
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, appeared on FOX News' "America's News HQ" today to discuss how President Obama's policies are hurting hardworking taxpayers, including on the issues of debt, energy, trade, and illegal immigration. Excerpts from the interview follow: On the lack of honest leadership:"I felt this president has a duty to lead selflessly. He needs to tell the American people the truth, [that] the greatest threat to the mid… Continue Reading
12.08.11
Sessions Comments On Social Security Votes, Encourages President To Return To Governing
"With no long-term economic plan of any kind, the president has abandoned governing in favor of campaigning. His only ideas are short-term measures and temporary stimulus checks that make the debt worse… no one can disagree that this country, and our beleaguered middle class, would be better off if the president would lay out a long-term plan for sustained job growth and deficit reduction." WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, del… Continue Reading
12.06.11
Responding To President’s Kansas Address, Sessions Asks: Where Will His Policies Leave Us?
"The president talks about fairness. Yet one of the results of his administration has been to widen the inequity between the middle class and the political class… The middle class must pay for the president's failed policies twice-first, they have to pay the bill for profligate federal spending, and then they must pay the price for its economic consequences in the form of lost jobs and mounting debt." WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Com… Continue Reading
12.06.11
U.S. In Fiscal Denial
Recent reports assert that the federal government has entered a new era of austerity. For instance, an article in Politico claimed "2011 was a year that saw spending trends break heavily in favor of deficit hawks."[1] In fact, federal spending continues to increase at a rate well above inflation, despite the country having amassed $15 trillion debt-an amount larger than our entire economy. Other debt-ridden governments have cut spending by more than five percent in one year and, in at least… Continue Reading
12.06.11
War Savings Gimmick Explained
Some in Congress are willing to use a reduction in war spending to offset increases in domestic spending and reductions in revenue. This offset is a budget gimmick since it claims savings from money that would never be spent in the first place. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) baseline assumes that war spending (overseas contingency operations or "OCO" spending) will grow every year from the $159 billion provided in FY 2011 and cost $1.8 trillion over the FY 2012-2021 period. … Continue Reading
12.06.11
Sessions Challenges War Savings Gimmick
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding reports that some lawmakers may attempt to use the war savings gimmick to 'pay for' increased spending and borrowing: "There are a series of items that Congress must address before the year ends that, together, could add hundreds of billions of dollars to our deficit. These items include the AMT, the pension holiday, an extension of unemployment insurance, and… Continue Reading
12.02.11
The November Jobs Report: A Closer Look
The total number of people without jobs is 13.3 million. Additionally, 2.5 million people wanted and were available for work-more than this time last year-but were not included in the overall unemployment rate. The unemployment rate dropped from 9.0 percent to 8.6 percent, but 315,000 Americans left the labor force. This means that the percentage of Americans unemployed dropped because fewer were looking for jobs, thus exaggerating the trend downward. Had labor force participation remai… Continue Reading
12.02.11
The Chorus Grows: Obama’s Budget Represents Failure Of Leadership
"President Barack Obama has unveiled a hugely disappointing budget, cutting only a few percentage points from the $100,000bn in projected US federal deficits over the remainder of this century… If Mr Obama will not make this case, who will?" Financial Times, Obama's budget shows failure of leadership "The larger problem with the budget is the administration's refusal to confront the hard choices that Mr. Obama is so fond of saying must be faced." Washington Post, President Obama's budg… Continue Reading
11.29.11
The Case For Growth: Sessions Lists Benefits Of Discretionary Cuts
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered an opening statement today at a hearing with former Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici and former OMB and CBO Director Alice Rivlin to discuss the report from their bipartisan debt reduction task force. Sessions argued that immediate reductions in discretionary spending will result in numerous benefits, such as spurring economic growth, easing the deficit burden by hundreds of billions of dol… Continue Reading
11.29.11
Sessions Expresses Concern Over Obama Nominee For Key Budget Post, Lack Of Candor From White House
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, released the following statement ahead of tomorrow's hearing to consider Heather Higginbottom's nomination to be Deputy Director for the Office of Management and Budget. Over the past 20 years, other appointees for this position have had an average of seven years of budget or finance experience, but Ms. Higginbottom has admitted that she has not had any such formal training or experience. "President O… Continue Reading
11.29.11
Congress Should Cut Its Own Budget To Have Credibility On Spending, Sessions Says
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following comment today after the passage of a non-binding resolution that expressed the "Sense of the Senate" that the Senate should cut 5 percent of its budget, but that will not actually do so. Sessions opposed the measure, urging more significant and meaningful action: "For Congress to have any credibility with the American people when it comes to spending cuts, it ought to lead to tri… Continue Reading
11.29.11
Sessions: Obama Budget Nominee Must Reject Bogus WH Claims
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following statement today at a hearing to consider the nomination of Heather Higginbottom to be Deputy Director for the Office of Management and Budget. Unlike previous nominees for this post, Higginbottom lacks formal budget experience or training. Sessions' remarks, as prepared, follow: "I join Chairman Conrad in welcoming you to our committee today, Ms. Higginbottom.… Continue Reading
11.29.11
Sessions Speaks In Support Of Latest Spending Reduction, Stresses Need For Further Action
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, spoke on the Senate floor today in support of a continuing resolution to fund the government over the next three weeks while reducing spending by $6 billion. The measure, which passed by a vote of 87-13, follows a resolution early this month to reduce spending by $4 billion over two weeks. Congress must still agree on a continuing resolution for the remainder of the fiscal year. An excerpt… Continue Reading
11.29.11
‘The Most Irresponsible Spending Plan In Our Time’: Sessions Reacts To CBO Score, Renews Call For Honest Budgeting
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, made the following statement today after the release of the Congressional Budget Office's analysis of the president's budget, which revealed that the official White House proposal concealed an additional $2.3 trillion in deficits and, within a decade, would quadruple our nation's publicly held debt from what it was at the beginning of the 2008 fiscal year. On the heels of these revelations… Continue Reading
11.29.11
Sessions, Hatch Ask Medicare Trustees To Account For Medicare Double Counting In Next Estimate On Medicare Solvency
Dear Honorable Trustees: We strongly reject the notion that the spending reductions from and the payroll tax increases to the Medicare Hospital Insurance (HI) trust fund enacted in the new health care law (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or PPACA) can both improve the government's ability to pay future Medicare benefits and finance new entitlement spending outside of Medicare. While we recognize your specific charge as a Medicare trustee allows you to assess the financial s… Continue Reading
11.28.11
Don’t Retreat On Spending Cuts: Sessions Argues Momentum Is On Side Of Action
"America's strength is measured not by the size of our government but by the scope of our freedoms. Endless spending, taxing, and borrowing is a certain path to decline." WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered remarks on the Senate floor today explaining that Republicans stand behind a strong, immediate spending reduction to begin restoring confidence in the economy: "Government funding is set to expire next week on April 8th. So we … Continue Reading
11.28.11
Balanced Budget Amendment Would Pave Way For Unprecedented Economic Growth
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today after all 47 Republican Senators joined to introduce a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "In the Budget Committee we have heard countless warnings from expert after expert and witness after witness. We are on a dangerous and unsustainable path of spending and borrowing. The chairs of the president's own fiscal commission warned that the United States f… Continue Reading
11.23.11
Effects Of The Budget Control Act Sequester On Defense Spending
The Budget Control Act imposed caps on discretionary spending and provided a mechanism for achieving an additional $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction over the next 10 years through the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the so-called supercommittee). The failure of the supercommittee to find that additional deficit reduction will cause a $1.2 trillion spending reduction over 2013-2021 through an across-the-board process known as sequestration. The sequester will achieve $492 billion in… Continue Reading
11.22.11
Sessions Comments On Committee’s Analysis Revealing True Impact Of Defense Sequestration
WASHINGTON-U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today upon the release of a new Budget Committee analysis about the concrete effects of the sequester on both defense and non-defense spending. In light of the supercommittee's failure to reach a deficit reduction agreement, the disproportionate nature of defense cuts has received increased attention: "There's been much confusion over the actual effects of the sequester. This… Continue Reading
