“The best way to cut the deficit in the long term is to make investments in areas that will grow our economy and create jobs, and this budget will do just that,” said Kildee. “We are making the tough choices to turn our economy around by creating jobs, reforming health care, and investing in education.”

In only eight years, the Bush Administration squandered a record surplus, creating five record deficits and building massive debt. The irresponsible budgets of the Republican controlled Congress and the Bush Administration not only have contributed to the current economic crisis, but they have made more difficult the task of recovering from it. The House today rejected another such misguided budget alternative offered by House Republicans that would have continued the same failed fiscal policies that were touted by the Bush Administration.

“In the 1990’s we balanced the budget, and I made the tough votes to do it. We wiped out the deficit, and in the last eight years, the Administration’s misguided priorities wiped out that surplus,” said Kildee. “The Republican proposal offered no new solutions, only stale policies that would have renewed tax breaks for the wealthy and made deep cuts to healthcare and education programs.”

The Democratic budget will cut the deficit by nearly two-thirds by 2013 and cuts taxes for middle class families by $1.5 trillion. It will create jobs and grow our economy with targeted investments and reforms in health care, clean energy and education while reducing non-defense discretionary spending to its lowest level in nearly half a century. This long term economic plan ushers in a new era of honesty in budgeting by fully accounting for known expenses like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that previous administrations left out to make the deficit look smaller. To bring change and restore integrity to Washington, this budget sets an unprecedented effort in rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in government spending.