“I fear… that these budget hearings may not be a good use of your time. The Senate Democrat leadership is refusing, for the third straight year, to bring a budget plan to floor. Has the Senate Democrat majority forgotten the warning of Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who told us the […]
“I will ask again as I did at the hearing… does the president propose to increase or decrease spending levels from those agreed to under the Budget Control Act in August? … I was shocked when you—the president’s budget chief—strenuously resisted answering this fundamental question. Eventually, you responded that the president’s budget did, in fact, […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued a statement today following Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s testimony before the Committee: “The Administration continues to persist in the duplicity that this budget cuts spending when it increases spending by $1.5 trillion over the levels in current law. Even giving them credit […]
“Secretary Geithner… you are a capable and loyal member of the administration. But, more fundamentally, you are a servant of the American people. You have an opportunity today to help us understand both the dangerous unsustainability of our fiscal path, and the depth of change needed to right our course… History will judge our conversation […]
“Given the gravity of our fiscal crisis—and Mr. Zeints’ obligation to present honest facts to the public—I asked him whether, if he was shown to be wrong, he would resign. I will soon be sending him a letter expressing my concerns from today’s hearing and pressing for a straightforward answer to a straightforward question. Mr. […]
“The White House claims they have introduced a plan to achieve $4 trillion in deficit reduction… But these assertions rely on a calculated series of budget gimmicks. An honest analysis proves that the president’s plan achieves only $273 billion in total deficit reduction over ten years… Under this plan, we will accumulate $11 trillion in […]
“I am glad Chairman Conrad will be marking-up a budget in committee. But the mark-up will be a doomed exercise if your own majority leader decrees that the budget process will be shut down. Majority Leader Reid has effectively declared both a Senate Democrat budget – and the President’s budget – dead on arrival.” “While […]
“By refusing to lay out a budget plan for public examination—a fact no one can deny—the Democrat Senate has forfeited the high privilege to lead this chamber.” WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today as Majority Leader Reid announced that, for the third year in […]
“Americans have a right to expect honesty, transparency, and accountability from their elected officials. They have a right to know that a cut is a cut, an increase is an increase, and that a price tag is accurate.” WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, and U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding the release of the latest CBO Budget and Economic Outlook and the Committee’s estimation that our nation’s actual debt path would produce $5.7 trillion in debt above the CBO baseline: “An honest analysis tells us that spending […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today ahead of the vote on the resolution of disapproval on President Obama’s requested debt limit increase: “The president’s request to borrow another $1.2 trillion dollars—all of which will be spent and gone within the next twelve months—brings America […]
“The president says he wants an ‘America built to last.’ But we can’t do that with borrowed money. Debt is not an asset, spending is not a virtue, and borrowing is not a future.” WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered an opening statement today at a Committee hearing […]
WASHINGTON—In response to President Obama’s State of the Union address, U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement tonight: “It was stunning how thoroughly and deliberately the president ignored the ominous threat hanging over this country—our surging $15 trillion debt. I stand ready, eager, and willing to […]
“Senate Democrats abandoned their official duty to prioritize Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars and tackle our nation’s most pressing economic challenges—dealing a painful blow to fiscal progress that may be felt for some time.” WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today in response to reports that President Obama has decided to reject the permit for the Keystone XL oil pipeline, a plan that has been estimated to immediately result in the creation of 20,000 new jobs: “This is a […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, released the following statement today about the selection of current OMB Director Jack Lew to be the new White House chief of staff, and the resulting vacancy at the Office of Management and Budget: “I wish Jack Lew the best fortune in his […]
“At $89 billion, the annual food stamp budget is… the second-largest of nearly eighty federal welfare programs that cost taxpayers around $900 billion a year… the USDA recently [announced] ‘new tactics to combat fraud and enhance SNAP program integrity’… I would therefore ask that the Committee be immediately provided with a thorough explanation of all […]
“House Republicans have worked vigilantly all year to change our debt course, and produced a budget to do exactly that. The great shame is that they never had willing partners in President Obama and his Democrat-led Senate.” WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today prior […]
“[The Keystone Pipeline] is precisely, precisely the kind of thing that this Congress should take action on… because it will create jobs, lots of jobs, create wealth, make us more secure as a nation, and help bring down the cost of energy… yet the president has blocked the pipeline construction for some time, deferring a […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today in support of S.J. Res. 10, the Republican balanced budget proposal, and expressing concern over provisions in the Democrat counter-measure (S.J. Res. 24): “Washington has both a moral and economic responsibility to balance the budget. Morally, we have […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, appeared on FOX News’ “America’s News HQ” today to discuss how President Obama’s policies are hurting hardworking taxpayers, including on the issues of debt, energy, trade, and illegal immigration. Excerpts from the interview follow: On the lack of honest leadership:“I felt this president […]
“With no long-term economic plan of any kind, the president has abandoned governing in favor of campaigning. His only ideas are short-term measures and temporary stimulus checks that make the debt worse… no one can disagree that this country, and our beleaguered middle class, would be better off if the president would lay out a […]
“The president talks about fairness. Yet one of the results of his administration has been to widen the inequity between the middle class and the political class… The middle class must pay for the president’s failed policies twice—first, they have to pay the bill for profligate federal spending, and then they must pay the price […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following statement today regarding reports that some lawmakers may attempt to use the war savings gimmick to ‘pay for’ increased spending and borrowing: “There are a series of items that Congress must address before the year ends that, together, could add […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered an opening statement today at a hearing with former Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici and former OMB and CBO Director Alice Rivlin to discuss the report from their bipartisan debt reduction task force. Sessions argued that immediate reductions in discretionary spending will […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, released the following statement ahead of tomorrow’s hearing to consider Heather Higginbottom’s nomination to be Deputy Director for the Office of Management and Budget. Over the past 20 years, other appointees for this position have had an average of seven years of budget […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, issued the following comment today after the passage of a non-binding resolution that expressed the “Sense of the Senate” that the Senate should cut 5 percent of its budget, but that will not actually do so. Sessions opposed the measure, urging more significant […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, delivered the following statement today at a hearing to consider the nomination of Heather Higginbottom to be Deputy Director for the Office of Management and Budget. Unlike previous nominees for this post, Higginbottom lacks formal budget experience or training. Sessions’ remarks, as […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, spoke on the Senate floor today in support of a continuing resolution to fund the government over the next three weeks while reducing spending by $6 billion. The measure, which passed by a vote of 87–13, follows a resolution early this month to […]
WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee, made the following statement today after the release of the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis of the president’s budget, which revealed that the official White House proposal concealed an additional $2.3 trillion in deficits and, within a decade, would quadruple our nation’s publicly held […]