The Week Just Past:  A Budget with Too Much Red

Presidential Support for a Passaic River Priority

Highway Bill is a Road to More Debt

Small Business is Not Hiring!

“Every CEO… is Worried About Obamacare”

Rodney’s Town Meetings: Jobs, Obamacare, Hiring Veterans!

The Week Just Past:  A Budget with “Too Much Red”

“I recall House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi once famously declaring that the President’s budget ‘spells out his priorities in too much red.’

“Of course, she was referring to a previous President but she could have been talking about the budget unveiled by President Obama on Monday.

“The blueprint he put forth contains more irresponsible, misguided and wasteful spending. Staring at a growing $15 trillion national debt, the President is proposing an increase in the budget deficit to an unacceptable $1.33 trillion next year! This debt crisis threatens our economy and job growth, our national security, and our very way of life and must be dealt with today, not tomorrow!

“The President is also suggesting that we raise taxes by $1.9 trillion! Residents of New Jersey are already overtaxed, fleeing to lower tax states, as are many of our businesses, taking jobs with them.  Washington has a spending problem and we should not raise taxes on anyone while spending is out of control!

“And at the very time Iran is working overtime to develop a nuclear arsenal, threatening to close down vital oil shipping lanes and is rattling sabers in the direction of our Navy and our ally, Israel, the President has embarked on a path that will seriously undermine our Armed Forces.

“I recognize that these are the President priorities.  But I am disappointed that the President has chosen to write a political campaign  document rather than the serious budget the American people deserve.  

“With that said, I remain committed to working with my colleagues – from both parties where possible – to advance realistic solutions that lift our crushing burden of debt and ensure a future of opportunity and growth.

“We cannot ignore that in today’s real numbers, we already have a ‘credit card debt’ of $15 trillion, and our country cannot afford President Obama’s call for higher taxes, a larger federal workforce and increased government spending. We need to be focused on creating an environment for growth that fosters small business investment, expansion and private sector job creation in the real economy.”

                                                    Rodney Frelinghuysen

Key facts from the President’s budget:

·         Spends Too Much:

o    $47 trillion of government spending over the next decade

o    Proposes a net increase over current spending projections

·         Taxes Too Much:

o    $1.9 trillion in new taxes

o    Raises taxes, not to pay down the debt, but to fuel more government spending

·         Borrows Too Much:

o    Four straight years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits; no plan to reduce the debt

o    Gross debt at the end of FY22: $25.9 trillion

·         Budget Gimmicks & Broken Promises

o    Overstates new deficit reduction by taking credit for savings already enacted

o    Exploits discredited budget gimmick by “not spending” nearly $1 trillion that was never going to be spent

To read a bicameral fact sheet prepared by the House Budget Committee and Senate Budget Committee, click here.

Recommended Reading: Tuesday editorial in the Wall Street Journal, "The Amazing Obamam Budget. He's proposing higher spending and deficits this year." Read the editorial here.

Presidential Support for a Passaic River Priority

While opposing his overall budget proposal, Rodney this week had praise for the President’s decision to include $1 million in the Fiscal Year 2013 Budget for the Passaic River “Mainstem” project. 

“Because too many families and businesses are all too familiar with damaging floods, addressing these conditions remains a top priority of mine,” Rodney said.  “This funding is vitally important to our residents and businesses and I commend the President for responding to my request to make the Passaic River basin a ‘Presidential priority’. While the President’s budget overall is a non-starter, this is one of the provisions that is worthy of support,” he said.

This additional funding will be used to execute an agreement between the State of New Jersey and the Army Corps of Engineers to begin to evaluate options to lessen the impact of storm events.  In addition, the Army Corps of Engineers announced last week that it had included an additional $250,000 in its work plan for the Passaic Mainstem for the current fiscal year.

The re-elevation of the Passaic River Mainstem was just one of the fifteen recommendations of Governor Christie’s Passaic River Flood Advisory Commission. 

Read more about the Governor’s Passaic River Flood Advisory Commission here.

Recommended Reading: Dana Milbank, writing in the Tuesday Washington Post, “Obama’s Budget Games.” Worth a read from a liberal columnist.

Small Business is Not Hiring!

·         Small businesses are the key to job creation, but as a new Gallup poll shows right now 85 percent of small businesses cannot hire because of the current economic environment.  

Forty-eight percent of small business owners place the blame squarely on ObamaCare, citing the onslaught of new regulations and costs as the greatest hindrance to hiring, beyond a simple lack of demand.

That’s why it is so important to repeal this expensive and damaging law and replace it with common-sense, patient-centered solutions that lower costs and increase access to care. This is part of a larger effort to create a growing economy, where small business have the confidence to invest, hire and expand.

You can read the report on the Gallup poll here.

Recommended Viewing: Wall Street observer Jim Cramer:  “What I’m telling you, business leaders fear [Obamacare] more than anything. They don’t want to hire … People have to recognize that this is a front and center issue for every CEO I deal with and another reason why they don’t want to hire here and they want to hire there. …  That’s a major debate for the economy.”

See the video here.

Recommended Reading: Please readScott Gottleib, writing in theThursday Wall Street Journal, “Meet the Obamacare Mandate Committee:”

Noted With Interest:  Did Harry Reid Put The STOCK Act On The Back Burner?“I had a meeting yesterday on that,” the Senate Majority Leader said Tuesday of the bill to bar insider trading by members of Congress. “It’s just this other stuff that’s taking precedent over that now.”

The House passed the Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act last week.  Rodney is a cosponsor of the bill.

Rodney’s Town Meetings: Lack of Jobs, Obamacare, Hiring Veterans!

Rodney continued his ongoing “listening tour” by conducting Town Meetings in Livingston and Kinnelon last weekend. 

After initial remarks about his top priority in Congress, creating jobs in the real economy, he addressed the pace of the drawdown in Afghanistan and the prospects of a nuclear-armed Iran. “We need to get government off people’s backs, let’s get America back to work and build a strong military,” he said.

He fielded questions about the economy, the Obamacare health care law and the $500 billion in Medicare program cuts being used to finance it, the onerous Dodd-Frank banking regulatory bill, fairness in the tax code, domestic energy production and the Keystone Pipeline, among other topics.   

A Livingston resident who works for “Tip of the Arrow,” spoke of finding veterans jobs and shared a success story on recent veterans filling job vacancies with New Jersey Department of Transportation. Rodney wholeheartedly agreed, “We need to put a premium on hiring veterans.”