James M. Jeffords: “a Federal budget is about setting priorities, and the priorities contained in this budget are all wrong. About a year…”

“a Federal budget is about setting priorities, and the priorities contained in this budget are all wrong. About a year ago, Tom Friedman of the New York Times, described the President's budget as ``faith-based.'' Faith-based tax cuts were going to generate faith-based revenues, and we were all going to be better off. Well, the deficit is skyrocketing, interest rates are going up, and additional revenues haven't magically appeared. If the budget before us were to pass unchanged, the deficit would increase each and every year for the foreseeable future. Vermonters understand that this is a burden we don't want to pass on to our grandchildren. We have fallen into a borrowing pattern that makes this Yankee cringe. But let me emphasize that the deficits that we are now facing are primarily caused by a drop in revenues, not by wasteful spending on such things as education, veterans' benefits, and Amtrak. We could eliminate all of the Federal Government's discretionary spending outside of defense and we would still have a deficit. On the mandatory side of the budget, I agree that we need to get a handle on increases in Medicaid spending and the pressures on Social Security due to the aging baby boom generation. But this budget fails to confront these challenges and in the case of Social Security pretends there is no problem. How can we pass a budget that ignores the cost of the Iraq War after September 30?”