WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, released a letter today sent to U.S. Small Business Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet concerning the cost of SBA’s 7(a) loan program. The text of Sessions’ letter follows: “Dear Administrator Contreras-Sweet: Encouraging lending to small businesses is one of the primary purposes of the Small […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following prepared remarks today at a Budget Committee hearing on opportunity, mobility, and inequality in today’s economy: “Thank you, Chairman Murray, for holding this important discussion today. A sober review of the data reveals that the economic situation for too many […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following prepared remarks today at a Budget Committee hearing on the President’s FY 2015 budget proposal with testimony from Treasury Secretary Jack Lew: “Thank you, Secretary Lew, for appearing before us today. In 2009, the Administration wagered America’s financial future on […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, released a letter today sent to Chairman Patty Murray asking that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius be invited to appear before the Committee. The text of Sessions’ letter follows: “Dear Chairman Murray: At the end of our hearing with the Director […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today after a new Bureau of Labor Statistics report revealed that February marked the 74th straight month that employment levels have been below what they were at the start of the recession: “Since 2007, the population has grown by […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following remarks today at the Budget Committee hearing on the President’s FY 2015 budget proposal with testimony from OMB Director Sylvia Burwell: “Director Burwell, thank you for joining us here today. Two weeks ago, where you are sitting today, we heard […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding President Obama’s fiscal year 2015 budget submission: “Just days ago the Director of the Congressional Budget Office sounded the alarm over our nation’s ‘unsustainable’ debt path and ‘the risk of a fiscal crisis.’ But President Obama has […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the Friday afternoon announcement that the Senate’s Democrat majority would, for yet another year, violate its legal obligation to produce a budget plan: “With this decision every single Senate Democrat has fled the fiscal battlefield at a […]
“The centerpiece of the strategy should be a consuming national effort to reduce the welfare rolls and grow the employment rolls… Imagine how much could we could do if we redirected [our $750 billion yearly welfare budget] to focus on job training, job placing, and work preparation. Wouldn’t that be a better, more productive, and […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the debt limit increase: “This measure would increase America’s debt limit approximately $1 trillion while failing to reduce spending by a single penny. And the legislation takes no steps whatsoever to eliminate gimmicks that allow spending above […]
“The President said his stimulus bill, the Affordable Care Act, increased taxes and regulations, and more government spending would result in a strong [economic recovery]… Sadly, CBO’s report recognizes that the President’s 2010 health care law is a hammer blow to lower-income workers… It is our duty to take principled, achievable steps that will benefit […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the state of U.S. labor markets: “Today’s jobs report provides further evidence of the damage done to labor markets by the slow economic recovery. One of the most troubling factors is the sheer number of people who […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued a statement today as the Committee released a staff analysis of the new Congressional Budget Office baseline outlook. The analysis follows Sessions’ comments: “CBO’s stunning report shows that our fiscal outlook is markedly worse than in its previous estimate, with deficits up by […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following prepared remarks today at the Budget Committee hearing on the economic outlook for 2014: “The recovery from the 2009 recession seemed to be solid at first, but it has not come close to meeting the projections of the Administration (OMB), […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the new 10-year baseline from the Congressional Budget Office: “This morning, the Budget Committee held a hearing with the ostensible purpose of reassuring us that all is well, that the economy is getting stronger, and that there […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement this evening regarding President Obama’s State of the Union address: “President Obama says he is concerned about low wages and chronic unemployment for American workers. Yet his signature second-term legislative item is an immigration bill that would immediately and […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding testimony from a senior Department of Defense official regarding recent cuts to veterans’ pension payments: “I was pleased to see Christine Fox, Acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defense, agree with the need to fix the […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following prepared remarks on the Senate floor regarding President Obama’s expected call for the House to pass an immigration bill that would dramatically increase the number of low-skilled workers brought into the country: “President Obama is preparing to deliver a State […]
“The Senate is where the great issues of our time are supposed to be examined, reviewed, and discussed before the whole nation. Yet, in the last few years, we have witnessed the dramatic erosion of Senators’ rights and the dismantling of the open legislative process… All of us, both parties, have a responsibility to stop […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the military pension provision in the omnibus: “I was pleased that the House-Senate package includes a provision restoring the pensions for disabled veterans, after we called attention to the fact that wounded warriors would be impacted by […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following prepared remarks on the Senate floor yesterday addressing the issue of persistent, long-term unemployment: Today, President Obama delivered remarks on the growing problem of poverty and chronic unemployment that has occurred during the five years of his presidency. Just this […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement on the December jobs report: “Today’s jobs report underscores a deeper problem facing our economy: a large and growing block of people who are chronically jobless and completely outside the workforce. In December, the economy added only 74,000 jobs […]
“It represents an admission that five years of tax, spend, borrow, and regulate have produced economic misery for countless Americans.” WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today in response to President Obama’s address on chronic unemployment: “The President today announced five ‘promise zones’ scattered throughout […]
“Majority Leader Reid rushed through this closed-door deal without a single amendment.” WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement tonight after the Senate voted 64-36 to adopt the Ryan-Murray spending package: “I appreciate the earnest work that went into crafting this proposal and the sincere policy […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement tonight after the Senate voted 46-54 not to table Reid’s amendments that ‘filled the tree’ in order to allow actual amendments to the Ryan-Murray budget deal: “Today, Reid and his majority quashed the ability of any Senator to offeramendments […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding a provision in the so-called Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 that cuts the pensions of disabled military veterans to fuel much larger spending increases elsewhere: “It has been asserted that the controversial change to military retirees’ pensions […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding a provision in the Ryan-Murray spending package that would remove a key protection against future tax-and-spend legislation: “As we near a Senate vote on the spending package that emerged from the House, I remain deeply concerned about […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the provision in the Budget Control Act replacement package that removes a crucial budget point of order in the Senate: “My office has received multiple inquiries as to the effect of the Ryan/Murray deal on Senators’ rights […]
“A series of concerns, on balance, cause me to be unable to support the legislation produced by Chairman Ryan and Chairman Murray, including: While I favor reorganizing elements of the Budget Control Act to smooth the impact, I do not favor increasing total discretionary spending above what was agreed to over the 10-year BCA period […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, today released a letter that he sent to the acting chief executive officer of the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), which is the organization responsible for managing the Universal Service Fund used to pay for programs such as Obamaphones. An identical letter was […]