Scott Walker: “Mr. Chairman, a lot of us, when we went home, found a lot of our constituents were wondering how we got ourselves into…”

“Mr. Chairman, a lot of us, when we went home, found a lot of our constituents were wondering how we got ourselves into this $4.5 trillion debt mess and why we have huge deficits. This amendment is really the reason why. This amendment says it does not matter, the fact that we are trying to reprioritize. What we want to do is just spend more. Because if you take off the cap, as this amendment proposes to do, it simply is add-on spending, add-on spending over and above anything we are doing now. The statement that was just made that somehow this is going to kill fusion research and all that sort of thing is just plain nonsense. We are talking here $15 million worth in total. That is one-half of 1 percent of a $3.3 billion account. All we are suggesting is that $3.3 billion account ought to be capped at the 1995 spending level. We ought not spend anymore in order to reprioritize the hydrogen program within that account. By doing that, what you assure is we have no add-on deficit. We have no add-on debt. And it seems to me that as a Congress right now we do not want to be approving programs that increase the deficit and increase the debt.”