Senate Passes Conrad Budget

Dear Friend, Early this morning, the United States Senate voted to pass my Senate Budget Resolution, a bipartisan plan which puts America's working families first by lowering taxes and making health care, college tuition, and energy more affordable. My budget supports our troops, cares for our veterans, and kick-starts the economy through job-creating efforts like rebuilding our nation's roads, highways and bridges. And it does all that without raising taxes. This budget is also fiscally responsible. It lowers taxes and holds the line on spending. It creates a budget surplus by 2012 and begins to make the changes that are needed to put our nation back on a sound fiscal course. Overall, the Budget Resolution approved by the Senate today will: Lower taxes. Extend middle class tax cuts and reform the estate tax. Invest $3.5 billion more than the President's plan to develop clean, domestic and renewable energy sources to curb the nation's addiction to foreign oil. Increase the President's proposal for the Department of Education and Head Start by more than $5.7 billion Make crucial investments in the nation's infrastructure by fully funding highway and transit projects while fixing the Highway Trust Fund shortfall. Hold the line on overall spending. Spending as a share of the economy actually goes down every year after 2009. Help provide increases to the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Boost veterans' funding, including medical care, by over $3.2 billion more than the President's plan. Fully fund the President's requested defense funding, including for costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Restore all funding cut by the Administration from the COPS law-enforcement program. The COPS plan has put more than 250 police in North Dakota since its inception in 1994. Tomorrow, I will be speaking to the nation about the budget when I deliver the response to the President's weekly radio address. You can hear a preview of my remarks by clicking here. You can also read a transcript of my speech by clicking here. The federal budget I have put together reduces debt and supports the nation's priorities of a safer America and a stronger economy. And it begins to put our nation's fiscal house back in order. Sincerely, KENT CONRAD United States Senate You have received this e-mail because you have signed up for Budget Issue Updates. If you do not want to receive future updates, you can remove yourself from this mailing list by visiting my Web page at http://conrad.senate.gov/issues/signup.cfm. Please feel free to forward this e-mail to others who you think would be interested in this information. If this e-mail was forwarded to you and you would like to sign up to receive future updates directly from me, please visit my Web page at http://conrad.senate.gov/issues/signup.cfm.