Sen. Toomey: Obama budget: an 'abdication of leadership'

U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) today released the following statement on President Obama’s budget fiscal year 2013 request:

“During the past year, I have focused on two vital priorities – restoring economic growth and private sector job creation, and putting our federal government on a sustainable fiscal path,” Sen. Toomey said. “Unfortunately, the president’s budget request fails on both counts.

“After three consecutive years of trillion-dollar-plus deficits, this budget request contains massive levels of spending and projects a $1.3 trillion budget deficit for this year – an even bigger deficit than last year. In addition to more wasteful stimulus programs, the president’s budget raises taxes on job creators at a time when we should be reforming our tax code with lower tax rates and a broader tax base to encourage more economic growth and job creation.

"Finally, the president fails to make the necessary reforms to truly fix our entitlement programs, which are, by his own admission, the main drivers of our deteriorating fiscal outlook. Medicare and Medicaid are both growing at unsustainable rates – much faster than our economy. The president knows it, and yet, he refuses to support the structural reforms to put these programs on a sustainable path. This is a tragic abdication of presidential responsibility.”