Paul Ryan: President's
FY 2013 Budget Charts Path to Debt and Decline
February 17, 2012
Paul Ryan, Committee on the Budget
Chairman offered the following comment on President Obama's FY 2013
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 generation to a diminished future.
Spends Too Much:
$47 Trillion In Ten Years — A Net Increase Over Current Projections
After four straight years of
trillion-dollar-plus deficits (breaking his promise to cut the deficit
in half), President Obama’s budget worsens our fiscal crisis and speeds
the country to bankruptcy. Three years after the passage of the
President’s trillion-dollar spending stimulus, this gimmick-filled
budget calls for more wasteful spending taken from workers’ paychecks or
borrowed from abroad. The massive spending increases are greater than
the few proposed spending reductions.
Spending in FY13: $3.8
trillion
Spending in FY22: $5.8
trillion
Increased spending concealed
through gimmicks: $1.5 trillion
Total government spending
over the next ten years: $47 trillion
Taxes Too Much: $1.9 Trillion In New Taxes
The President’s budget imposes a heavy cost for its commitment to
intrusive government—diminishing economic opportunity by imposing the
largest tax hike in history. Taking trillions more tax dollars from
hardworking American families will further depress wages and destroy
jobs at a time when millions of Americans remain out of work. In total,
this budget imposes $1.9 trillion in new taxes on families, small
businesses, and job creators—all to fund wasteful Washington spending.
Income tax hike: $1.4
trillion
Death tax hike: $143
billion
Other tax increases: $340
billion
Borrows Too Much: $11
Trillion Added To The Debt
Under President Obama’s watch, the federal government’s total debt has
surpassed the size of the economy—undermining job creation today and
threatening a debt crisis tomorrow. The President’s budget ignores the
drivers of our debt, bringing America perilously close to a
European-style crisis:
Deficit in FY12: $1.3
trillion
Deficit in FY13: $901 billion
Deficit in FY22: $704 billion
Gross debt accumulated during
President's first term: $6.4 trillion
Gross debt at the end of
FY22: $25.9 trillion
Annual interest payments on
the debt by FY22: nearly $1 trillion
Gimmicks,
Tricks and Broken Promises
The President’s meager deficit-reduction claims seek to take credit for
over $2 trillion in savings already in law and the exploitation of
discredited budget gimmicks, including almost $1 trillion in “savings”
from money that was never requested and never to be spent in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
By failing to put forward long-overdue reforms, his budget allows Social
Security to fall into bankruptcy (imposing an across-the-board 23
percent cut on seniors) and gives unaccountable government bureaucrats
control over cutting Medicare in ways that would result in denied care
for seniors. No credible action is taken to lift the crushing burden of
debt. This President’s empty promises are quickly becoming broken
promises for millions of Americans.
