Sean Patrick Maloney: “Today is a solemn day, but as Americans focus on our Armed Forces abroad, here at home we face an unprecedented moment…”

“Today is a solemn day, but as Americans focus on our Armed Forces abroad, here at home we face an unprecedented moment in our budget history. Never before has Congress tried to pay for a war and at the same time pass a massive tax cut. This budget also compromises future economic stability because it is so demographically blind. If we cannot plan to address the debt now, how are we going to keep our promises to the elderly when the baby-boom generation retires? The fiscal policies of the President enacted by the Republican Congress will impose a massive deficit burden on our children and our grandchildren. In 2000 we had not only eliminated the deficit, President Bush inherited a surplus of over $230 billion a year, but now the projected deficit is over $300 billion for this year alone, and at the close of fiscal year 2002, the government debt stood at $6.2 trillion. The President's own numbers show that were we to enact his programs as proposed, we would grow this debt by $2.1 trillion from 2002 to 2011, and that is before we begin to account for the war.”