Washington, D.C. – Senator Ron Johnson (WI) made the following statement regarding President Obama’s proposed budget for the Federal Government for fiscal year 2013:

“Before I was sworn into the United States Senate, I ran a manufacturing company for 31 years. I learned to look past the symptoms of a problem to identify the root causes. And to me, slow growth and weak job creation are the symptoms of the problem: the root cause is the size, scope, and cost of government. In 2010, government at all levels consumed 39.2 percent of our economy. Nearly 40 percent of our economy was filtered through government at some level. Our national debt – which was just $2.3 trillion at the end of fiscal year 1987 – will reach $25.9 trillion by 2022, under President Obama’s budget.

“As former Joint Chiefs Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen has said, the national debt ‘is by far our biggest national security threat.’  Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently said that the dynamic is ‘clearly unsustainable.’ Instead of tackling the problem, the President is proposing the largest tax increase in American history – one which would destroy jobs rather than create them. The President has talked about cutting spending. But he proposes $47 trillion in spending over the next ten years, as compared to the $46 trillion he proposed in his last budget. That’s not a cut. He has no proposal to save Social Security and Medicare. He has ignored the risks of rising interest rates and slowing growth – either of which would add trillions to our debt and deficits. Quite simply, he has failed to lead.”

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