“To budget is to govern, and this plan puts our country on a sustainable fiscal path which will allow our economy to grow, create jobs and save taxpayers their hard earned dollars,” said Congressman McKeon in a prepared statement. “A real economic recovery cannot be centered around higher taxes and greater borrowed government spending, and our critical safety nets will not survive under the current path of unsustainable growth. This budget puts our country on a path toward prosperity and offers America modernization, reform, growth and opportunity.”
Ten Republicans joined with House Democrats to vote against the plan.
Due to the defections, Republicans only passed their budget by an extra margin of four votes. Ten Republicans also opposed last year’s budget, though there were 241 total GOP members of the House last year, versus 232 sitting Republicans at the time of this year’s vote.
In the statement, McKeon urged “the Senate and the President to come together with this Congress to finally pass a budget for the American people” that will avoid some of the steep cuts to defense spending caused by the sequester.
“As Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, I am particularly gratified to see this plan provide for our men and women in uniform and our national security by replacing deeply harmful sequestration cuts to our national defense with other common sense reforms,” said McKeon. “As our economy slowed and our deficit rose, this Administration began to question our role in the world and called for substantial reductions to our national defense. While we agreed that everything should have been on the table in order to address this nation’s deficit spending, defense has represented only 18% of our national budget, while our military has absorbed 50% of the cuts to date.”
Congress moved quickly following the budget vote to pass legislation setting spending levels for the rest of this fiscal year. The House voted 318-109 to pass a continuing resolution funding the government through September, averting a government shutdown that would have occurred at the end of this month without the new spending authority. The Senate passed the same bill on Wednesday. It now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature.
McKeon says Ryan's Budget Offers "Reform, growth and opportunity"
