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Westerman Comments On President's Proposed Budget

February 2, 2015

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON – Congressman Bruce Westerman (R-Hot Springs) issued the following statement regarding the president's proposed budget released Monday (February 2, 2015):

"The president's proposed budget is nothing but a flip-flop. He was the president who signed sequestration into law. He was the one who said the government would have to live within its means when he was preparing his run for re-election. And now he is the one proposing to increase spending $74 billion above legally-mandated budget caps he signed into law. My question for the president is how does spending money like a drunken sailor on shore leave help hardworking Arkansans get back to work or improve their wages? It doesn't. Even with his plan to raise taxes on American families, his budget never balances. His proposed budget just props up the president's already tattered image and doubles down on his failed policies."

A story in Friday's Washington Post reported the current level of deficit spending at 2.6% of the nation's current gross domestic product, with a Congressional Budget Office report released last week projecting an increase to 4.4% of GDP by 2025 based on current spending projections prior to the release of the president's proposed budget.

About Rep. Bruce Westerman

A lifelong resident of Garland County, Congressman Bruce Westerman was elected the 20th representative of Arkansas's Fourth Congressional District in 2014. In the 114th Congress, he will serve on the Committee on Natural Resources, the Committee on the Budget, and the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

Elected twice to serve in the Arkansas General Assembly, Westerman was Arkansas's first Republican House Majority Leader since Reconstruction, and an architect of the House Republican SIMPLE Plan which led to the 2013 Republican takeover of the Arkansas House of Representatives.

An engineer and forester for 22 years at Mid-South Engineering in Hot Springs, Westerman is a registered professional engineer and forester. He holds a Master of Forestry degree (2001) from Yale University. In 2013, he was named Engineer of the Year by the Arkansas Society of Professional of Engineers.

Westerman graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from the University of Arkansas in 1990. While at Arkansas, Westerman was a four-year walk-on member of the Razorback Football Team. He received the Outstanding Young Alumni Award in 2005 and the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012.

Westerman is a former board member of the Fountain Lake School District and is a deacon at Walnut Valley Baptist Church. He lives in Hot Springs with his wife Sharon and their four children.

For more information on Rep. Bruce Westerman, please visit https://westerman.house.gov and follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RepWesterman and Facebook at https://facebook.com/RepWesterman.

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