Earlier today ATR’s Center for Fiscal Accountability informed members of the U.S. House of Representatives that it will rate a vote in favor of the RSC Budget alternative which was unveiled last night. The budget alternative is far superior to the Pelosi-Obama-Reid budget which would drastically increase spending and hike taxes. From our vote alert:
While the Pelosi-Obama-Reid budget would hike federal spending to unsustainable levels hitting nearly 25 percent of GDP – well above the 40-year average of 20.7 percent – the RSC proposal would bring spending as a percentage of GDP down to 17.9 percent in the last budget window through a series of meaningful reforms, including, among other things:
requiring each committee to identify savings equal to one percent of total mandatory spending under its jurisdiction that are determined to be wasteful, unnecessary or lower priority;
assuming reductions in or the elimination of several programs that are considered lower-priority such as Amtrak, AmeriCorps, the Presidential Election Campaign Fund or the NEA; and
assuming a moratorium on earmarks.
On the tax side, too, the Republican Study Committee alternative proves to be far superior to the Pelosi-Obama-Reid budget and would keep taxes below their modern historical levels as a percentage of the economy.
For a pdf version of the full alert click here.