Washington, D.C. — 

Senator John Thune (R-S.D.), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, today issued a statement following the release of President Obama’s long-delayed budget proposal:

“Last week we learned that nearly 500,000 Americans stopped looking for work, driving down the labor force participation rate to 63.3 percent, the lowest level since Jimmy Carter was president. Just days after that report, the president had an opportunity today to lay out an economic plan that would help restore our nation’s fiscal health, grow our economy, and put people back to work. Instead, the budget proposal put forward by the president represents more of the same failed economic policies that have led to the worst recovery since World War II.

“President Obama, like his Democrat colleagues in the Senate, proposed a budget that will never balance—ever. His budget would raise taxes by $1.1 trillion—on top of the $1.7 trillion in new taxes already enacted under his administration—and only reduce the deficit by a mere $119 billion in the next decade, despite the fact that the national debt is projected to grow by $8.2 trillion during that same period. The president’s budget is more of the same tax and spend policies that will grow government, not the economy.”