Washington, DC -- Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) issued the following statement responding to President Barack Obama’s speech on Wednesday regarding reducing our National Debt in a responsible manner.  The President’s proposal contrasts starkly with the House Republican plan which would destroy Medicare and Medicaid as we know it, while reducing taxes on corporations, like Big Oil,  and the wealthiest Americans.  The GOP plan puts the burden of fiscal responsibility on the lower and middle classes, whereas the President’s plan, while not perfect, spreads the responsibility among all Americans.

“After the House Republicans put out a plan that tried to turn the clock back almost 100 years, President Obama presented one that looks towards the next 100 years.  There is no way we can reduce our debt while preserving our fragile economic recovery by making low- and middle-income families pay the bill.  We cannot tell seniors currently receiving Medicare coverage that not only will they have to pay more, but their children one day may not be able to receive the same benefits. 

“The President understands these realities and outlined a plan which would accomplish severe reductions in the debt while preserving and improving our social safety net.  By using the bipartisan Erskine-Bowles debt commission report, he is reminding leaders from both parties that this is a mess that we got into together, and we must fix it together.   We should not continue to mix financial policy with social issues – the way the House Republicans did by attacking Planned Parenthood, NPR, the EPA and others – and focus solely on what is really affecting our debt. 

“We must remember that in the last decade we took the surplus left behind by President Clinton and turned it into this debt.  It started with the 2001 Bush tax cuts, then the Afghanistan War and 9/11, the Iraq war, the 2003 Bush tax cuts, the unpaid-for Medicare Part D prescription drug plan, the near-Depression of 2008, the stimulus used to combat the near-Depression, and the unfortunate extension of the Bush tax cuts last year.  When you factor in the aging Baby Boomers, and their affect on Medicare and Social Security, you see where the problem lies.  Federal taxes sit at the lowest level since 1950, and corporate loopholes are all over the code allowing some companies to pay fewer taxes than the people cleaning their offices.

“I am a bit wary about the plans for savings in Medicare, but if the President’s numbers are accurate, it would be much more amenable to find ways to save in the existing system rather than destroy a proven and successful safety net program by ending Medicare as we know it.  I look forward to diving into his proposals for waste reduction and reform in Medicare and am hopeful that they will accomplish the important savings needed in the system.  I applaud his assertion that Social Security is not a cause of the deficit problems and must be untouched by GOP hands who have tried to privatize it in the recent past. 

“I call on my Republican colleagues to use this speech as a starting point for true bipartisan debt-reducing legislation.  I call on them to scrap their budget plan scheduled to be voted on this week, which is going to be dead on arrival in the Senate.  We have no excuse not to take up the mantle of leadership and work together to answer the American people’s desire for a more fiscally responsible and efficient government.”

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