Warner/Kaine vote for Senate budget and its big tax increasesPoliticsVirginia

In case you missed it, the United States Senate managed to pass its first budget in almost four years by a slim 50-49 vote.

The body approved a plan that relies heavily on $975 billion in new tax revenue to stabilize the growth of the national debt within the next ten years. The budget does not balance, however, and has a deficit of $566 billion in 2023.

The Murray budget contains $975 billion in spending cuts, including $275 billion in new cuts to Medicare and Medicaid spending. But it also turns off $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts scheduled over nine years. Factoring that in, the budget does not constitute a net spending cut.

This is called a “balanced” approach, nevermind that the result is continued budgetary imbalance.

Both Mark Warner and Tim Kaine voted “yes.”

But of additional interest, Sen. Warner won approval for an amendment that would “repeal or reduce the estate tax, but only if done in a fiscally responsible way.” The measure passed 81-19.

  • Out of Balance

    I’m not sure why it is called ‘balanced’, but I think it has to do with the fact that it raises my taxes a lot while lowering the amount of deficit spending a little. But that still isn’t balanced. Just tax hikey.

  • Ron Frazier

    No surprise. Big spenders and Kaine pretty much does what he’s told. I honestly can’t figure people out, if you don’t reduce spending then the only way to balance the budget is to raise Fed. taxes 42%. Some folks say, make the rich pay their share, well I think the “rich” ( working people, small business, Corp.etc.) are getting stiffed pretty good now. Who would Obama and the libs attack if the rich were not there?

  • Brad Froman

    Warner and Kaine are being good sheep for their party, but are being irresponsible to Virginians and the rest of the country by kicking the can down the road and leaving all the causes of our economic disease to fester even worse. Nobody in Washington has a vision and wants to lead, including our two U.S. Senators.

    • George from Cleveland

      Warner and Kaine desire to lead the US into the European model of economics and government. They aren’t sheep, and enough people are paranoid of the alternative that they keep winning