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Health & Fitness

Mr Kline: PLEASE get your facts right

President Obama released his proposed Fiscal Year 2015 budget today. John Kline immediately issued a scathing press release. He said, among other things:

“Today’s budget proposal includes hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending to fund new federal programs. In critical areas such as early learning, job training, and higher education the President wants to make an existing maze of programs even more costly and confusing. Spending more money on broken programs will not provide the support our most vulnerable children, workers, and families desperately need.” (emphasis mine)

It would be nice if Mr. Kline got his facts right for once. It is getting old having to correct him all the time.

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Here’s the truth about the budget. You can see for yourself: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Overview

Total Revenue is up from Fiscal Year 2014 by 8.1%, to a total of $3.2 trillion. Total defense discretionary spending is DOWN by 0.9%, to $606 billion. Total non-defense discretionary spending is DOWN by 3.3%, to $543 billion. Total education spending is UP by 1.9%--an increase which totals $1.4 billion. The increase in education spending is hardly the “hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending” that Mr. Kline claims. In fact, the Department of Education does not even spend “hundreds of billions of dollars” in total spending.  And, overall, with combined discretionary and mandatory spending, the proposed budget deficit is DOWN by 10.6%. The total budget does not spend “hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending.” In fact, the budget spends billions of dollars LESS.

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Here’s the detail:

Agriculture $22.2B  -7.90%

Commerce  $8.8B  6.00%

Education  $68.6B  1.90%

Energy  $27.9B  2.60%

EPA  $7.9B  -3.70%

HHS  $73.7B  -7.60%

Homeland Security  $38.2B  -2.80%

HUD  $32.6B  -3.20%

Interior  $11.5B  unchanged

Justice  $16.7B  -38.60%

Labor  $11.8B  -1.60%

NASA  $17.5B  -0.60%

Transportation  $14B  2.20%

USAID  $42.6B  -0.20%

VA  $65.3B  2.90%

Come on, Mr. Kline. I am all for a good, hearty debate. But for once, let’s have it based on the real facts.


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