Washington, D.C.--Congressman Eliot Engel (D-NY) issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s FY 2011 budget, which was released today. Rep. Engel is a senior member of the House Energy & Commerce and Foreign Affairs Committees.

“Our economy was teetering on the edge of disaster when President Obama took office a little more than a year ago. The economic crisis required swift and extraordinary measures to avoid catastrophe, and the President and Congress acted accordingly. Through these actions we were able to prevent the Great Recession from becoming another Great Depression. The budget surplus, enjoyed at the end of the Clinton Administration, has become a distant memory, replaced with the chilling realities of massive deficits and a near-economic collapse. Now that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy will be expiring, that will help take some air out of the ballooning deficit.

“Make no mistake, these problems came directly from 12 years of a Republican-controlled Congress and eight years of the Bush Administration and their policies. The Republicans still talk about cutting taxes for the rich as their answer to this economic mess - the same policies that put us here in the first place, and so it can hardly be the answer to cleaning things up.

“Everything spent over this time period is adding to our deficit, most significantly the unpaid-for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am a firm believer in the PAYGO policies, where you pay for your actions and programs as you propose them. This was the policy which created surpluses in the 1990s, and once again became the practice of Congress when the Democrats took control in 2007. The Republicans ran up these bills and now we have to pay for them. They have left a legacy of debt.

“We must get our financial house in order, and that is one of the main reasons for addressing health care reform. Health costs continue to skyrocket each year and contribute greatly to our financial challenges. Once a reform agreement is reached and sent to the President, the Medicare Part D donut hole will be closed, health costs will be slowed and a substantial hurdle towards long term fiscal stability will be reached. Coupled with the medical reasons for reforms to the health system – covering the uninsured, protecting those with pre-existing conditions – the fact remains that the millions of healthy people with adequate coverage will eventually face the stark reality that our health system cannot afford to stay the same. They too will one day see costs rise to unacceptable levels if we don’t act now.

“The President is talking about a freeze on a small, but not insignificant, portion of discretionary spending. However, we cannot be pennywise and pound foolish. There are many programs in that portion of the budget that are very important to Members of Congress and their constituencies. What he is doing is isolating these programs for freezing, but I am uncertain if this will be fair and equitable to all parts of the country, especially to my home district in New York.

“By leaving some major domestic issues underfunded, it places too strong of a burden on the states to cover the gap. This will result in increases to working families in the form of higher transportation costs, including subway and bus fairs and increased bridge tolls, higher regional sales taxes, and other ways for states and localities to raise the money no longer coming from the federal government. To working families, a tax increase is a tax increase no matter from where it originates.

“The President proposes deep cuts to some budgets, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I am concerned that the funding to alleviate the flooding issues facing Suffern, Clarkstown, Orangetown, Mt. Vernon and countless other regions of the state will continue to be delayed. By zeroing out these budgets, more burden falls on the states, counties, cities, towns and villages to pay for the damages resulting from flooding. And of course, the people truly suffering will be the homeowners.

“I am concerned about the targets of some of the proposed cuts, and equally troubled by the continued focus on cutting Congressional earmarks while Presidential discretionary spending continues. Belt-tightening must occur on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. However, I am pleased with the increased focus on education. The President has rightly stated that long term sustainability of our nation is built upon the foundation of a well-educated population. Our next generation should be better prepared for the challenges ahead than the previous one. I am happy to see the following attention given to education in New York State:

• $3.6 billion to develop better teachers and classrooms
• $2.2 billion to New York students for Pell grants, enabling more than 526,000 students to afford college.
• Nationwide increases in grants to help develop improved math and science curricula, turn around low-performing schools and better assist low-income students to repay their loans.

“The President’s Budget also provides New York with $3.6 billion aid for its infrastructure, which can put people back to work in the short and long term.

“Working families need help, and the budget has targeted ways to help people make ends meet during these tough times. The extension of the Making Work Pay Tax Credit will help millions of New York families. Child care funding increases for middle class and working families will help those with jobs be able to keep them, and better enable those without to search for employment without worrying about who will take care of their children.

“The President’s budget gives great attention to biomedical research through the Support National Institutes of Health (NIH). It includes $32.1 billion for NIH, including more than $6 billion for cancer research. The President has long talked about his commitment towards finding a cure for cancer, and this budget goes a long way towards that goal.

“As a tireless advocate for more Medicaid funding for New York, I am grateful that the Administration heeded my call to extend the Recovery Act’s temporary increase in Medicaid Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) rates. The $25.5 billion increase in FMAP nationwide will help New York maintain extra support for children and families through June 2011.”

“Additionally, $150 million, an increase of $79 million, is included in the Health and Human Services budget to support treatment and monitoring services for responders of the World Trade Center (WTC) attacks and for community survivors directly affected by the attacks. The Centers for Disease Control currently funds six clinical centers and two data and coordination centers throughout the New York City metropolitan area as well as the WTC Health Registry, which assesses the extent of WTC-related health conditions for the exposed population.

“This 9-11 health funding is a positive step by the Administration. I will continue to work hard to enact H.R. 847, the ‘James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act,’ which would provide permanent funding to guarantee care for first responders, residents, workers, and schoolchildren exposed to 9-11 toxins due to the devastating terrorist attack on our nation.”

“The President was correct in the State of the Union when he said we had to start somewhere, and he is making a very good effort towards fiscal restraint. His Administration, and the Democratic Congress, was dealt a bad hand and we must work together with the Administration to find the best methods to turning it into a winning hand. We must be careful along the way to make sure that working families, and a still-alarming amount of workers still searching for jobs, are not hurt along the way. They have carried the burden for far too long for the Republican’s irresponsible actions and we must start to turn the tide which has led to the decade-long decline that middle class families have experienced.”