WASHINGTON D.C.- Earlier today, the House Leadership announced it would bring to the floor a budget resolution that worsens the deficit and fails to include any meaningful reform as advocated by the Blue Dog Coalition.

The Blue Dog 12-Step Reform Plan unveiled in February, was a more comprehensive and responsible alternative than the meager attempt at reform contained in the Republican Budget compromise offered today. The national debt has soared over $2 trillion under the watch of the current administration, with trillions more projected in the next 10 years under current policies. The 12 Step Reform Plan is based on the Blue Dogs’ commitment to solving growing fiscal problems facing our country.

“With the nation’s addiction to deficit spending growing year after year, the process is clearly broken. The Blue Dogs have offered the antidote to cure our nation’s addiction to deficit spending,” said Rep. Dennis Cardoza (CA), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Communications. “It is a sad day for Congress – and for the Country – that the Republicans have decided the nation does not even deserve meaningful reform to get our nation out of its growing deficit hole."

“Members on both sides of the aisle need to work together in a bipartisan manner to promote fiscal responsibility and honest budgeting,” said Rep. Dennis Moore (KS), Blue Dog member of the Budget Committee. “If we continue to ignore the long term consequences of our budgetary actions, we will be forcing our children and grandchildren to pay a steep price for the deficits we create today. Raising the public debt by nearly $800 billion by September, as envisioned in the budget conference report, will increase our national debt limit to $9 trillion and put our country in an even deeper hole than we’re in today.”

Since their inception in 1994, the Blue Dogs have been the leading voice in Congress on the need for reasonable, common-sense solutions to our nation’s budgetary woes. The Coalition has focused this year on fixing a broken process that allows our nation to run deficits exceeding $400 billion a year, much of which is borrowed from foreign nations like China and Japan.

“Once again, the Republican budget turns a blind eye to the real fiscal crisis confronting this country. By 2009, our government will be spending more in interest for the national debt that it will on education, highways, national parks and all other non-military spending combined,” said Rep. Jim Cooper (TN), Blue Dog Co-Chair for Policy and member of the Budget Committee. “This year’s budget resolution does nothing to repair the deficit damage in fact it worsens it. This budget requires the nation’s debt ceiling to be increased by another $781 billion for just this fiscal year. When are we going to stop digging the hole deeper?”

The Coalition’s call for bipartisan action on the budget comes as the Blue Dog 12-Step Reform Plan has been praised by several organizations from both sides of the aisle dedicated to fiscal responsibility, including The Heritage Foundation, Centrists.org, Citizens Against Government Waste, National Taxpayers Union, and Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The Coalition’s 12-Step Plan has won praise from editorial boards across the country. Earlier this month, The Chicago Sun-Times wrote, “Blue Dogs are a small group who may think they’re howling in the dark with their proposals, but the more they howl, the more they’ll be heard by those tired of undisciplined government spending. If there’s enough yelping, Congress has to listen.”

In order to keep up the yelping, the Coalition has recently placed debt clock posters outside Blue Dog offices that are updated every day to inform Members of Congress, Congressional staff, and constituents of the national debt and how the debt is increasing by over a billion dollars every day.

"This budget disaster proves all over again what happens when we ignore time-tested ground rules like PAYGO," said Congressman Ed Case (HI-2nd), a member of the House Budget Committee. "This budget deepens our fiscal crisis now, yet has the gall to conceal its worst impacts lying just beyond its five-year window. Then, adding insult to injury, it hides still another debt ceiling increase from the American people. This is an arrogant budget, and we and our children will pay a high price for it."

"The Blue Dog's 12-point budget plan promotes fiscally responsible budget reforms, including the support of a constitutional amendment that would require the federal budget to be balanced every year," said Rep. Mike Ross (AR), Blue Dog Whip. "The reforms we've set forward are not Democrat versus Republican reforms, but are reforms that simply make sense. American families strive every month to live on a balanced budget at home, and I don't think it's asking too much to hold our government to these same standards."