FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 13, 2007
Contact: OMB Communications, 202-395-7254

STATEMENT BY OMB DIRECTOR JIM NUSSLE ON
DEMOCRATIC JOINT ECONOMIC COMMITTEE REPORT

WASHINGTON - The report released today by Democrats on the JEC is an unfortunate example of the Congressional leadership attempting to manipulate economic data for public relations purposes. Instead of providing our men and women in uniform the resources they need by sending the President a clean supplemental funding bill, Democrats are trying to distort reality for political gain.

Aside from the reality that overall defense spending as a percentage of the economy is lower than at any other time of war in the past 100 years, there are several additional distortions within the report, such as attempting to tie war costs to overall business investment and the price of oil. The facts are that Congress has failed to pass energy legislation the President proposed to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, and since the President’s tax relief passed in 2003, real fixed business investment is up nearly 30 percent, showing positive gains in 15 out of 17 quarters.

I urge the Congressional leaders to put our troops first and pass a clean supplemental funding for our troops before they leave for their two week Thanksgiving vacation.

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