WASHINGTON, DC-Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Sander M. Levin (D-MI), issued the following statement, as prepared for delivery, at a hearing today with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on the President’s FY 2012 Budget.
“The President’s budget is in sharp contrast to the House Republicans’ continuing resolution. It embodies a necessary combination of investing in economic growth and reducing our deficit. The Republican 2011 blueprint, which the House will debate this week, reflects starkly different priorities: it disinvests. It would take our economy backwards through extreme cuts that would be felt by families throughout our nation.
“The President’s budget charts a responsible path to a sustainable fiscal situation. Its point of departure is an economy that has been through a wrenching recession and a recovery that is still gathering strength. Since the recovery began, more than 1.3 million private sector jobs have been created, more than in all eight years of the Bush Administration together. Our efforts were designed to ensure a sustainable economic recovery and we must be sensitive to that as we take needed steps to reduce our deficits.
“That is why as the President’s budget lays out $1.1 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade, it invests in proven public-private partnerships that support jobs, innovation and growth. It makes permanent and enhances the R&D Credit. It extends the Build America Bond program, which Republicans oppose and which has financed over $180 billion in vital infrastructure improvements.
“It also provides an additional $5 billion for the highly successful 48C tax credit. This tax credit provides a direct incentive to manufacture advanced energy products like solar panel and wind turbines here in the United States. In just one example that I know Chairman Camp is very familiar with, Hemlock Semiconductor received $142 million in tax credits to help maintain its global leadership in producing the polycrystalline-silicon used in the manufacturing of solar panels. This is one of the vivid examples of a successful public-private partnership.
“The House Republican plan disinvests in jobs, in growth and in our communities. It cuts more than a billion dollars from the Clean Water Revolving Program, which finances water infrastructure and creates jobs today. It chokes funding for the Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is conducting cutting edge research to foster the products and jobs of tomorrow. It completely eliminates the COPS program that puts police officers on our streets every day to protect our communities. It takes a hatchet to the Community Development Block Grant Program that is so important to local economic development in municipalities that are under severe economic strain right now.
“At the same time, the Republicans’ rules allow for unlimited additional tax cuts that are not paid for at a time when tax revenues as a percentage of the economy are near an all time low. According to the Administration’s estimates, permanently extending the tax cuts for upper-income households alone would increase the deficit by nearly $1 trillion over ten years.
“The President’s budget focuses on preserving tax relief for working families making less than $250,000. It would permanently protect the middle class from the AMT. And it permanently extends vital assistance to working families that we had to fight Republicans to include in December’s tax compromise. This includes the earned income tax credit, the child credit and the American Opportunity credit.
“More broadly, the Chairman has criticized the President’s budget as lacking a plan for tax reform. If we are going to have tax reform, we are going to need to work together to make the difficult choices necessary for a responsible reform. In order to proceed in a deficit neutral manner as the Chairman has suggested, we will need to leave rigid ideological positions aside.
“Nowhere is this more true than on the debt limit. As Secretary Geithner has made clear, the need for fiscal responsibility and the need to support continued economic recovery must complement each other, not undermine one another. And vitally, we cannot jeopardize the economic recovery by putting at risk the full faith and credit of the United States. The Majority must not irresponsibly put our economy in severe jeopardy by using the debt limit as leverage or a bargaining chip. We took necessary steps to prevent a recession caused by a financial crisis from becoming a depression; we cannot risk a new financial crisis that would reverse the new momentum of economic growth."
