Washington, DC - As the U.S. House of Representatives anticipates a vote on the House leadership’s Fiscal Year 2005 budget resolution, Rep. Gene Green (D-Houston) released the following statement regarding the budget’s impact on Texas. 

 

“The budget today represents a string of broken promises.  The growing deficits it will cause breaks the promises we’ve made to taxpayers to budget responsibly.  It also breaks long-standing promises to Texas communities, seniors, students and veterans.

 

“The budget breaks our promise to Texas seniors by spending the entire $1 trillion Social Security surplus from 2005 to 2009.  The continual use of the Social Security to fund the Administration’s deficits and tax cuts is not sustainable and has prompted Alan Greenspan to suggest that we cut entitlement programs or raise the Social Security age. 

 

“The budget breaks our promise to Texas students by providing $8.8 billion below the authorized level for No Child Left Behind programs.  Despite the rising costs of college tuition, this budget fails to provide any increase in the maximum Pell grant awards, which 313,832 of students in Texas universities use to help finance their education. 

 

“The budget breaks our promise to Texas children by allowing $1 billion in funds for the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to expire.  Already, hundreds of thousands of Texas children have been dropped from the state’s CHIP program, and this budget will only cause more Texas children to lose health insurance during a time when health care costs are rising rapidly.

 

“The budget breaks our promise to Texas veterans by providing $1.3 billion less than what is needed for veterans’ health care programs. Veteran groups have called the Bush budget ‘an insult to veterans.’ And veterans groups across the board have said the Republican budget fails to provide adequate funding to meet the health care needs of America’s veterans.

 

“The budget breaks our promise to Texas communities by cutting homeland security funding at a time of increased security needs.  Houston is the only city in the U.S. to meet all fifteen federal threat criteria, yet this budget provides no resources to address a shortage in first responder or port security funding.”

 

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