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Thune: President’s Budget Priorities are Dead Wrong

“[M]ost presidents’ budgets, when they come out, they always refer to them as being dead on arrival. This particular proposal is dead wrong when it comes to its priorities.”

March 15, 2023

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WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today spoke at the Senate Republican Conference weekly press conference about how President Biden’s budget request would spend too much, tax too much, and fail to make the necessary investments in our national security.

Thune’s remarks below:

“Good afternoon. Let me just start by saying that all of us in the Republican Conference are wishing Leader McConnell the very best in his recovery and look forward to having him back.

 

“But in the meantime, we're going to be talking about the contrasts, the differences, between Republicans and Democrats, and there's probably no better example of that than the president's budget, which came out on Monday.

 

“And you know, most presidents’ budgets, when they come out, they always refer to them as being dead on arrival. This particular proposal is dead wrong when it comes to its priorities.

 

“And I'll just start with the spending and debt. It's going to grow the federal debt, if you can believe this, in the next 10 years up to $50 trillion. In terms of just the spending itself, we heard today at lunch, [a] 55 percent increase in spending since 2019, and at a time when the population of the country was only growing at 1.8 percent. Almost $5 trillion in tax increases, [including] on job creators and small businesses in this country.

 

“And if you look at just the overall picture of where they prioritize, where they spend their money, that's where it really gets disturbing, because they actually increase the IRS' budget by 15 percent, and a $30 billion increase over and above the $80 billion increase that they got last August, and the 87,000 new employees they got last August.

 

“Now, think about that. They only add 350 people to the Border Patrol to police the southern border, which is, we all acknowledge, is a national emergency, national security crisis. And then they fund defense at below the rate of inflation, 3 percent increase for defense, 15 percent increase for the IRS. If that doesn't talk about what your priorities are, I don't know what is.

 

“So, this budget is dead on arrival. And the massive amount of spending and taxing and borrowing that is included in it is something that not only Republicans here in the Senate are going to do everything we can to stop, but I believe the American people are going to be on our side.”