Feingold says budget resolution doesn’t go far enough to correct fiscal woes

A proposed Senate budget blueprint will add nearly $1 trillion to the deficit over the next five years, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) said Friday. 

The lone Democrat to vote against the budget resolution proposed by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Feingold said the plan “simply does not go far enough to put our fiscal house back in order.” 

The senator also said the budget plan for fiscal 2011 weakens the Senate pay-as-you-go rules because it will allow new tax and entitlement spending that could add nearly $2 trillion to the budget deficits. 

“The Senate’s pay-go rule was critical to wiping out the budget deficit in the 1990s,” he said. “As we start the difficult task of cleaning up the fiscal mess left to us by the last administration, weakening the sensible budget rule is precisely the wrong thing to do.”

Although the committee approved his amendment that requires the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to be paid for instead of being considered deficit spending, Feingold said “other provisions in the budget represent a big step backward.”