Mike Thompson: “last month the President submitted to us his 2005 budget. This week, later this week, in the Committee on the Budget we…”

“last month the President submitted to us his 2005 budget. This week, later this week, in the Committee on the Budget we are going to have a hearing on and mark-up that budget. Unfortunately, it is a 402-page document with one huge credibility problem. We are in the middle of a war, and yet it includes no war funding. It is a 5-year budget, but almost 80 percent of the cost of the President's new tax plan does not go into effect until after the 5 years after this budget. It finances a $519 million increase to veterans programs by shifting costs on to the veterans that this budget purports to help. It does that through the health insurance enrollment fees and co-pays on prescription drugs to the very veterans that we are supposed to be helping. It gives homeland security the largest increase of all the agencies, as it should; but it takes $800 million away from our local firefighters and our local police officers at the same time it says it is going to help these first responders. These are the first line of defense. These are the first responders, and we are taking money away from them in order to pay for them to do the job that they are supposed to do. It discloses that the Medicare prescription drug benefit costs $135 billion more than we were told it would cost just 2 months ago. This unexpected cost of $135 billion totals more than the budgets of Commerce, Energy, Homeland Security, HUD, Interior, State, and EPA combined.”