“Director Burwell’s nomination must and will be considered fairly, and with an open mind… [She] has a comparatively thin resume for the demands now placed on this position—she has never run anything on the scale of HHS—and, during her short stint as budget director, she did more to obscure the nation’s poor financial state than […]
“News reports indicate that NEH has contributed close to $1 million to the [Popular Romance Project]… The program ‘will explore the fascinating, often contradictory origins and influences of popular romance as told in novels, films, comics, advice books, song, and internet fan fiction…’ Now is not the time for us to come up with creative […]
“Washington and Wall Street are booming. The greatest growth area in the United States is Washington, DC… Lobbyists, consultants, and politicians are doing quite well. But median household incomes have declined by $2,268 since 2009… Tax, spend, borrow, and regulate is not only dangerous, but it won’t create jobs and higher wages. We must act […]
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 […]
In 2009, President Obama predicted his policies would produce 4.2 percent growth in 2013—more than double the actual, anemic growth rate of 1.9 percent. Since making that projection, President Obama has had much of his economic agenda implemented: the $870 billion stimulus bill, Dodd-Frank financial regulations, Obamacare, restrictions on American energy, $1.7 trillion in higher […]
Spending in 2015 would total $3.901 trillion under the President’s spending policies, an increase of nearly 8 percent ($279 billion) above today’s levels. This is $114 billion more than the OMB baseline, which assumes compliance with the Budget Control Act (BCA) as revised by the Ryan-Murray spending agreement. The President’s budget recommends $1.759 trillion in […]
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 […]
Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee worked with staff of the Employment Policies Institute to prepare an information sheet for each state on how the proposed increase in the minimum wage would affect employment and who would be affected. The Minimum Wage Fairness Act (S. 1737) calls for an increase in the Federal minimum […]
“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 Office of Management and Budget recently announced that President Obama’s FY 2015 budget would be delivered to Congress on March 4, just over one month past the statutory deadline (which requires the President’s budget to be submitted by the first Monday in February). This will be the 18th occasion that the Administration has missed […]
“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 […]
To view the Budget Committee’s detailed analysis of the omnibus as a 14-page PDF, including tables comparing the bill’s spending with the continuing resolution and 2008 enacted levels, please click here.