Palmer grills Obama budget director: Your budget ‘defies common sense’

WASHINGTON — Alabama's newest Congressman, Rep. Gary Palmer (R-AL6), took his turn to grill President Obama's budget director in a House Budget Committee hearing Wednesday.

After recounting the Aesop's fable of the ant who prepared for the impending winter, and the grasshopper who starved because he didn't, Rep. Palmer told Obama budget director Shaun Donovan, "The fiscal winter is upon us, Mr. Donovan, and if this budget is any indication this administration is playing the role of the grasshopper."

"What you're trying to sell the American people on is the idea that the Obama budget, which in its best year still has a deficit of $463 billion and adds almost $1 trillion more to our debt, is deficit reduction," Rep. Palmer said. "This might make sense to the administration, but it defies common sense. If you spend more than you take in each year, especially with a $19 trillion debt, can you honestly believe this is a responsible budget?"

Donovan, holding to the same line he used in his hearing before Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) Tuesday, testified that the President's proposed budget "reduces our debt."

"The issue is that it's adding $1 trillion to our debt," Rep. Palmer countered.

One of the many ways the President has proposed to increase government revenue is to tax the previously untaxed accumulated foreign income of US businesses, first this year at 14%, then at 19% in subsequent years, a prospect with which Rep. Palmer — along with many other GOP lawmakers — has taken issue.

"I just find it astonishing that there could be so much emphasis on taxing job creators," Palmer said. "I grew up dirt poor in a tiny little town in Northwest Alabama, so I understand who the job creators are.

"At a time when some of our biggest companies… are moving their headquarters overseas, and countless others are looking at it, because the US's punishing tax code, what makes you think that adding more taxes on these companies for doing business internationally is going to keep them rooted here?"

While Donovan often struggled to answer Rep. Palmer's questions, he got particularly tripped up by the Congressman's last line of questioning.

"The last thing I want to ask you about is you mentioned the savings generated through this administration's immigration policies," Palmer said. "So let me ask you this: given the likelihood that this Congress will not pass this administration's budget, how much of this does the President intend to do through Executive Order?"

After sitting in silence for a moment, Mr. Donovan answered, "Um, the President has already taken action within the power that the law grants him. He's made clear that…"

"He's taken action beyond what the power of the law grants," Palmer quickly shot back.

"He also says that he has a pen and a phone, and he's already used it in a non-constitutional manner. I'm just wondering if there's been any discussions in the White House about implementing some of these things, and this irresponsible budget, through Executive Order."

In addition to the tax on foreign earnings, the President's budget calls for an end to so-called sequestration—the automatic spending cuts put in place by Congress in 2011. The proposed budget asks for nearly $4 trillion in spending and adds almost half a trillion to the federal debt over the next year.

The 2,000-page budget would also increase the capital gains tax, which is paid by many middle class Americans, including farmers. Overall, the plan is estimated to add approximately $8.5 trillion to the federal debt over the next ten years.

GOP members of Congress are set to propose their own budget this Spring, which will almost certainly be at odds with the President's.