Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is making the rounds on Capitol Hill this week discussing the President’s Fiscal Year 2013 Budget. Before the Senate Finance Committee, House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate and House Budget Committees, Secretary Geithner explains how the President’s budget underscores his commitment to creating jobs, strengthening growth and improving opportunity for all Americans, while putting the country on sounder fiscal footing under a tough yet balanced approach that reduces projected deficits by more than $4 trillion over the next 10 years.
The Secretary emphasizes that bolstering economic growth in the long run and controlling our deficits both depend a great deal on us taking strong steps to support the economy now. In particular, this includes help for individual households and families through Congressional action to extend the payroll tax cut and emergency unemployment insurance, to advance the President’s broad-based refinancing proposal to help responsible homeowners, and to consider additional proposals set forth in the American Jobs Act and now included in the Budget. Read some excerpts from his opening statement yesterday:
“The President’s Budget outlines a long-term strategy to strengthen economic growth and improve economic opportunity, while reducing our deficits to more sustainable levels. Now, the conventional wisdom in Washington is that the debate we begin this week on the President's Budget does not matter because Congress is too divided to legislate in this election year. But this debate is very important. It matters because this is a fundamental debate about economic priorities—how to increase growth and opportunity, how to strengthen health care and retirement security, how to reform our tax system and how to live within our means. We govern with limited resources, and we have to make choices about how to use those resources more wisely, particularly given the millions of Americans that become eligible for Medicare and Social Security over the next few decades. Any strategy to address these challenges must answer a few key questions—how much do we have to cut, which programs should be cut, expanded or protected, how to share the burdens of deficit reduction.”
“But as we reduce spending, we also have to protect investments that are critical to expanding economic growth and opportunity. That’s why the Budget makes targeted investments in education, innovation, manufacturing, and infrastructure. In order to achieve this balance—significant savings and crucial investments—we are proposing to raise a modest amount of additional revenues through tax reform. The President’s plan includes 2.5 dollars of spending cuts for every dollar of revenue increases.”
“We propose tax reforms that raise revenues because we do not believe it possible to meet our national security needs, to preserve a basic level of health care and retirement security, or to compete effectively in the global economy, without some increase in revenues as part of a balanced plan. Although we illustrate in our Budget a range of specific tax changes that could be added on to the present tax system to generate the necessary increase in revenue, we think the best approach to get there is through comprehensive tax reform. We have outlined a broad set of principles for tax reform, to make the system more simple, more fair, and better at encouraging investment here in the United States.”
“The President’s plan includes very tough reforms, but with a balanced mix of spending cuts and tax reforms. It preserves room for us to make investments that increase opportunity for all Americans and help make growth stronger in the future. And it protects our basic commitment to retirement security and health care for the elderly and the poor. It provides substantial, immediate help for the average American, alongside reforms to restore fiscal responsibility. This plan will not solve all the nation’s challenges, but it will put us in a much stronger position to deal with those challenges.”
Read his full written testimony and tune in to the Senate Budget hearing at 10:00 AM ET and the House Budget Committee hearing at 2:00 PM ET.
Erika Gudmundson is New Media Specialist at the Department of the Treasury.