Louisiana Senator Landrieu Criticizes President Bush's Budget

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Mary L. Landrieu, D-La., today released the following statement in response to the Fiscal Year 2009 Federal Budget proposal submitted to Congress by the President.

Sen. Landrieu said:

“In his 2009 budget, President Bush finally makes an attempt at new-found fiscal responsibility by cutting 151 domestic programs and not accounting for most of his Iraq war funding. Despite these cuts, our deficit would still rise to $410 billion in the next year if Congress were to accept his misprioritized proposals.

“The President does rightly recognize the Gulf Coast’s 100-year flood protection requirements by requesting $5.8 billion in funding. However, his demand that Louisiana localities bear the remaining $1.5 billion places an onerous burden on the state budget that has billions in unmet infrastructure needs and a decimated tax base to rely on.

“Among the proposal’s unrealistic cuts, the President slashes funding for local law enforcement by 61 percent, totally eliminating the Byrne Justice grant programs and several COPS programs that have been essential to fighting the crime surge in Southeast Louisiana.

“As America has become more vulnerable to terrorist threats, the President cuts critical funding for emergency preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery. For example, the proposal cuts port security grants by 48 percent, severely threatening our ports response capability, and reduces firefighter grants by 60 percent. Strikingly, he cuts the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) budget by 31 percent despite the critical need to reform and resource the agency in the wake of its ill-equipped response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

“In hearings last year, United States Marine Corps leaders testified that a force structure containing less than 10 LPD-class ships would put the Marines at ‘significant risk’ in meeting commitments for global presence and countering terrorist threats. Despite that warning, the President’s budget request only provides $103.2 million for the program next year, stopping it at just nine LPD-17 ships. The termination of this LPD-17 program, short of its needed target, can and must be reversed. Failure to continue production of these ships will not only weaken our force structure, it could also cause the loss of thousands of highly skilled Louisiana manufacturing jobs in an already suffering United States manufacturing sector.

“The President also targets our farmers by slashing the Agriculture Department’s budget by $1.1 billion, in part by eliminating the Commodity Supplemental Food Program that assists the elderly.

“Despite never fully funding No Child Left Behind, undermining the bipartisan law that I took part in crafting, the President now freezes education spending in the year Congress must reauthorize the law. The cumulative shortfall of the law is $85.6 billion since its 2002 enactment.

“The most vulnerable in our society – the poor and the elderly – are also targeted with cuts to Medicaid of $17 billion and Medicare by $178 billion over the next five years.

“Three years ago, I described the President’s Fiscal Year 2006 proposal as leading Louisiana and America down a “Path to a Debt Society.” Working families across our state and nation have already felt the pain of that journey, and this proposal simply steers them down its steepest slope. As a Senate appropriator, I will work with my colleagues to ensure Congress enacts a responsible and honest budget – one that gives Louisiana the resources it needs for continued recovery and the American people the tools to meet the challenges ahead.”

Earlier today, President Bush commented on his budget by issuing this statement:

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all for coming. I just met with my Cabinet, where we discussed a lot of issues. And one issue we discussed is the budget. I submitted the budget today to Congress -- it's on a laptop notebook, an e-budget. It saves paper, saves trees, saves money. I think it's the first budget submitted electronically.

And it's a good budget. It's a budget that achieves some important objectives. One, it understands our top priority is to defend our country, so we fund our military, as well as fund the homeland security.

Secondly, the budget keeps our economy growing. It's central that we make sure that we deal with the uncertainties -- the economic uncertainties we face. And that's why we're working hard with the House and the Senate to get a growth package out quickly that will put money in the hands of consumers and provide incentives to small businesses and large businesses to invest.

Thirdly, we recognize that in order for this economy to grow, it's important to make the tax relief permanent. And that's what this budget reflects. It's a budget that boosts money for education and health and housing. It helps deal with the issue of making the tax code more fair for individuals who want to buy health insurance in the individual market.

This budget is one that keeps spending under control; discretionary spending is held to less than 1 percent. It eliminates 151 wasteful or bloated programs, saving the taxpayers $18 billion. It also takes a hard look at entitlement growth over the next five years, and provides specific recommendations to save $208 billion over those five years. At the same time, the budget achieves balance by 2012.

This is a good, solid budget. It's not only an innovative budget, in that it's coming to Congress over the Internet, it's a budget that's balanced -- gets to balance in 2012 and saves taxpayers money.

You know, in my State of the Union I said to the Congress that there's a lot of talk about entitlement spending. Once again, we've proposed specific reforms and specific measures. And Congress needs to come up with its own ideas. And Congress needs to respond to these looming deficits as a result of unfunded liabilities inherent in Social Security and Medicare. Our budget does that. Our budget protects America and it encourages economic growth. Congress needs to pass it.

Budget of 2009

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