WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Congressional Republicans on Wednesday blasted what they called “the largest tax hike in American history” in the latest budget proposed by House Democrats.

The budget “is an assault on the middle class of America,” Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., said before the House began debating the resolution. “What we have before us is a plain, good old-fashioned tax fight.”

The House Democratic budget, like the one approved last week in the Senate, is based on the assumption that Congress won’t renew President Bush’s tax cuts. That would cost taxpayers more than $700 billion over the next five years.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., said Democrats have “a responsibility to begin to clean up the fiscal mess that we have inherited.”

He and other Democrats pointed to the deficit run by the GOP and the Republicans’ refusal to make cuts in many of the most popular federal government programs.

“The Republican party’s free-lunch fiscal policies spawned record deficits and spiraling debt,” said Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. “The amount of foreign-held debt has more than doubled under the Bush administration from about $1 trillion in 2001 to $2.1 trillion today.”

Democrats in both chambers say that at least some tax cuts will be extended but that others won’t unless they’re offset by spending cuts.

“There’s no doubt there will be tough choices to make as we live within this budget,” said Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan. “But Americans are not afforded the luxury of living beyond their means, and our government should stop doing so at the expense of our children and grandchildren.”

Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, criticized the Democratic budget but also acknowledged the failure of his own party to control spending when it held majorities in both the House and Senate.

“There’s no question that we need to shine up our credentials on fiscal discipline,” he said. “Mistakes were made. But that was then and this is now.”

Even so, said Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the federal government should cut spending, not raise taxes, to fix the problem.

“We believe Washington does not have a revenue problem,” he said. “People are already sending enough tax dollars to Washington. Washington has a spending problem.”

churt@dcexaminer.com