Hoyer, House Pass Fiscally Responsible House Budget that Invests in Key Maryland Priorities

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (D-MD) and the House of Representatives voted today to approve the Fiscal Year 2008 Democratic House Budget, making good on a pledged commitment to set the nation back on the right fiscal track after six years of record deficits and debt created by the Bush Administration and previous Congresses. The Democratic budget, which balances the budget without raising taxes, restores fiscal responsibility and accountability to Washington; strengthens national defense; and makes sound investments in the right priorities for Maryland families.

"The Democratic House Budget that we passed today is a fiscally responsible budget that invests in the right priorities for Maryland families and stands in stark contrast to the extraordinarily irresponsible fiscal policies of the last six years," stated Congressman Hoyer. "While we cannot turn around six years of unmitigated irresponsibility in one single budget, today the House has taken a bold step in righting the fiscal wrongs that have dug us deep in deficits and significantly hampered our ability to address our nation's priorities."

The Democratic budget has a bottom line that is $234 billion better than the President's budget over five years and brings the federal budget back to balance by 2012. It provides for a robust defense, boosting homeland security funding and providing $3.5 billion more for veterans' programs - the largest ever single year increase in funding for our nation's veterans.

The Democratic budget also makes a sustained commitment to education, children's health care, transportation infrastructure, energy research and development, environmental stewardship, and middle-class tax relief, while rejecting the President's request to cut Head Start, LIHEAP, COPS and first-responder programs, and Community Development Block Grants. Furthermore, it does all this while strictly adhering to the Democrat-enacted pay-as-you-go budget rules.

"At its core, the budget is about our values and priorities and the choices we make to ensure the democratic principles of equality, opportunity, and prosperity for all," stated Hoyer. "The choice we made in passing the Democratic House Budget today is a choice to restore fiscal responsibility, a choice to invest in the right priorities for America, a choice to spare future generations from inheriting a legacy of debt, and a choice to take our country in a new direction."

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