Jeff Sessions

I hear from veterans in Alabama about the major concerns facing the veteran population, and the top-most concern I am hearing right now is about the very serious backlog of disability compensation claims.

This budget request is one that, in a time where sequestration is affecting many programs, including our defense budget, the defense budget is getting cut significantly.

Let me begin by saying that much of America's greatness comes from our veterans.

But there is no money to pay it with.

I would totally disagree with that, and I think that economic studies are going to prove that is wrong.

I do not believe that is the right approach.

It is a legal document. There are trustees who hold notes on the U.S. Treasury.

I know we can do better, and I hope we will on that.

It is an absolute fact.

I am generally of the view that we cannot grow our way out of this. I think we need to have some belt tightening.

It balances in 10 years. It does not just use the word 'balance.' Its revenue equals its outflow.

The President says this budget raises taxes $580 billion over 10 years, but the budget actually calls for $1.1 trillion in tax increases.

We need to avoid that crisis and we need more help from this administration to get our debt level down.

Those three studies--European Central Bank, IMF, and the Bank for International Settlements--also used gross debt, and each one of those analyses that they have produced, the United States is at a level where our growth is being slowed by…

We need to reduce our deficits

In this paper, 'public debt' refers to gross central government debt.

We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world, and we should be using that to reduce the corporate rate rather than increasing spending.

The gross debt of the United States in 2013 is $17.2 trillion, and in 2023, it is $25.4 trillion, a net increase of $8.2 trillion

I read your budget, it increases taxes in plain numbers by over $1 trillion, and it increases spending by almost that same amount, virtually having no deficit reduction.

It increases spending almost $1 trillion and increases taxes a similar amount.

The President's statement was very strong.

This is not a compromise plan. It is a tax-and-spend plan that does not alter the debt course of America, and that debt course, as Mr. Bowles told us, is unsustainable at this point.

Isn't your compromise hiding over a half trillion dollars in tax increases over the current baseline?

It does not produce a balanced budget.

So, to my colleagues, this is the reason I think it is accurate to say we have fundamentally a spending problem rather than a tax problem.