Lankford: President’s budget never balances

Chairman James Lankford (R-OK) joined his colleagues in the House in welcoming the President’s submission of his fiscal year 2014 budget suggestions after a two-month delay.

This is the first time in four years Washington has had three simultaneous budget proposals presented to plan for our nation’s future.

“After five years in a row of trillion-dollar deficits, we now have an opportunity to discuss three budget proposals and look for common ground among them,” said Lankford. “While we may not agree on every portion of the blueprint for our nation’s future, there are areas we can agree on. The House, the Senate and the President should work together to move on our common ground.

“Perpetual deficit spending is bad for our economy and bad for the economy our children and grandchildren will inherit. The President’s budget fails to adequately address the cause of our nation’s $16.7 trillion debt: deficit spending.  In a recent conversation with House Republicans, the President suggested he felt comfortable with perpetual “sustainable deficits.” To pay for more deficit spending, the President recommends more tax increases after Americans have already experienced two major tax increases in the last four years.

“He also astonishingly recommends that we cap retirement accounts of Americans he considers “wealthy” in order to effectively raise $9 billion over ten years and punish people who were responsible with their retirement planning,” continued Lankford. “He essentially wants to continue to increase taxes on Americans while they are in their working years, cap their retirement accounts so they can’t save what they want for retirement, and then take half of their money away when they die.

“Even with his recommendations, the President’s plan fails to ever bring our federal spending into balance.  Many Oklahomans believe we ought to balance our budget or at least have a plan to get there eventually.  House Republicans proposed a plan that balances our federal spending in ten years, while the Senate and President’s plan never balance our ledger, ever.

“I look forward to the discussion Senate Democrats, the President and Members of the House can have over areas we find in common for prioritizing hard-working Americans’ tax dollars,” concluded Lankford.