Press Releases

Larsen Votes Against Budget that Eliminates Medicare

Washington, DC, April 15, 2011
Today, U.S. Representative Rick Larsen (WA-02), released the following statement after voting against the Republican Budget Resolution for the 2012 Fiscal Year.
“I set a goal for myself to implement a forward thinking plan for long term economic growth that works for us in the Pacific Northwest through investments in skills and knowledge of people, support for innovation, and infrastructure all in order to maintain U.S. economic leadership in the world.
“When I looked at this budget proposal, I asked myself if it would help create jobs and boost economic leadership in the world and the answer is no.
“The Republican budget proposal slashes critical help by eliminating Medicare while the Democrats’ budget proposal strengthens the guaranteed benefit of Medicare so seniors can count on it for years to come.
“The Republican budget hurts students by cutting critical Pell Grants that help thousands of young adults in the Pacific Northwest achieve the dream of higher education while the Democrats’ budget proposal maintains this essential investment in our youth that will help them land good jobs after graduation and contribute to economic leadership in the world.
“The Republican budget extends tax breaks to the top two percent of income earners while the Democrats’ budget proposal asks for shared sacrifice to address our debt and deficit problem.
“Debts and deficits matter. We need to control spending but we need to take a balanced approach that will tackle our debt and deficit problem while protecting our economic progress and job creation efforts.”
Outside economic groups that have weighed in on this budget proposal dismiss many of the Republican claims that the budget will grow jobs and boost the economy. From their analysis, the budget will actually hurt job growth and economic progress. 
Macroeconomic Advisers, the highly respected economic forecasting firm, said House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s claim that this budget will lower unemployment to 2 percent by 2021 is “nonsense.” They also rejected the claim that the spending cuts in this proposal will generate economic growth. “We don’t believe this finding, which was generated by manipulating an economic model that that would not otherwise have produced the result.’’
And the Economic Policy Institute said: “The proposal would also bring non-security discretionary (NSD) funding down to its lowest level as a share of gross domestic product in over 50 years, and to less than half of the average level of NSD funding during the Reagan administration. The immediate impact of these cuts would be a significant loss of jobs in an economy already 11 million jobs short of reaching pre-recession unemployment rates.”
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