This is the only priority that makes sense if you are truly concerned about growing the economy, bringing people out of poverty and into the middle class. Added to this priority should be wage increases and higher paying jobs!

.

As both the House and Senate work on budget blueprints for the new fiscal year, Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, emphasized on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday that for his party “our priority is job growth” — not cutting the debt or annual budget deficits.

“Right now our big problem is to sustain the economic recovery. We’ve seen momentum in the job market and the last thing we want do right now is to put the brakes on that,” Van Hollen told NBC’s David Gregory. “In fact one half of this year’s deficit is due to unemployment.”

“What the president is saying is our focus right now should be to get people back to work, sustain the recovery – and then reduce the deficit in a measured, balanced way,” Van Hollen said. He added that President Barack Obama’s budget proposal for the new fiscal year which begins on Oct. 1 will put budget deficits “on a sustained, downward trajectory.”

Full story at: http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/17/17346794-leading-house-democrat-says-job-creation-not-deficit-cutting-is-immediate-priority?lite