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I don't need to tell you that lots of people in western Pennsylvania are hurting. We've been in a recession for more than two years. We've lost 3.1 million jobs nationwide since Prresident Bush took office. Unemployment has reached 6.1 percent -- the highest in nearly a decade. In Pennsylvania, where unemployment has risen from 4.4 percent when President Bush took office to 5.9 percent today, 100,000 additional people are unemployed.
It's clear that the current recession has seriously wounded western Pennsylvania. We need jobs. We need affordable health care. Our children need 21st century educations. Our senior citizens need effective, affordable Medicare prescription drug coverage. We need to have our roads and bridges and mass transit systems updated and expanded. Our communities have been ordered by the EPA to make $3 billion in repairs to their sewer systems; we can't make those repairs by ourselves--we need help from the federal government to do it.
Most of us need some kind of help from the federal government. And that is why today's hearing is so timely.
A budget is first and foremost, a statement of priorities--or at least the party in power's priorities. The administration and the leadership in the House and Senate have produced a budget that expresses some very clear priorities. Those priorities consist, first and foremost, of cutting taxes--especially for the richest people in the country. They also consist of dramatically increasing spending on defense and homeland security--some of which is critically necessary and some of which, like expensive new fighter planes, is not.
The Administration's irresponsible policies of cutting taxes while increasing defense spending are producing billions of dollars in deficits that could devastate the U.S. economy in the long run. The deficit is expected to reach $400 billion this year, and Congress is projected to run massive deficits in the coming years. If, as the President has proposed, Congress makes those tax cuts permanent, the federal government will rack up massive deficits and debts that will devastate our economy and our people over the coming decades.
I believe that it is wrong to borrow and spend and leave the bill for our children. While I have supported tax cuts in the past, I opposed the nearly $2 trillion in tax cuts that Congress has passed at the President's behest over the last two years. Moreover, I oppose making these tax cuts permanent. These tax cuts do little to help the people of southwestern Pennsylvania -- but they will most certainly place downward pressure on other federal spending and reduce the federal government's ability to provide this region with the help that we really need. These tax cuts will force cuts in federal health care spending, education spending, transportation spending, medical research, job training programs, and programs for seniors.
Clearly, help for mainstream Americans is a low priority for this Administration. The Republicans' emphasis on tax cuts will almost certainly result in significant cuts in other important federal programs.
Our government's top budget priority ought to be providing security and opportunity for its citizens. Our top priority ought to be creating new jobs, educating our children, providing comprehensive, affordable health care for everyone, and taking care of our senior citizens and the poor. I think that providing that kind of assistance to the American people should be the federal government's top priority.
Today, we will hear testimony about the kind of help people in Western Pennsylvania need from our government. Our panelists today will addrerss many of the problems facing the most vulnerable and impoverished members of our society -- and how the federal budget recently approved by Congress will make those problems worse. I believe that their testimony will sharply demonstrate that the price of passing massive tax cuts for the wealthy is the chronic underfunding of the critical services that the federal government provides. I look forward to hearing what our panelists have to say. Thank you.