Jay Dickey: “cut spending first; that is the mandate that I got when I came here and not only have I gotten it but it has been…”

“cut spending first; that is the mandate that I got when I came here and not only have I gotten it but it has been repeated time and time and time again by those folks whom I represent. One way you can cut spending is by tax cuts, and what happens is if you have tax cuts, you just lessen the amount of money that comes into the government. The government then shrinks to match its budget, and we have less government, less intrusion, and less waste. Another way is to cut spending in the true sense of the word, and that is what we are doing to the tune of $9 billion in this bill. I think it is a credit to what the committee has done rather than a criticism, seeing the criticism we have gotten. When we went to cut this budget, we went to the source of the people who knew best, where waste was, where the fat was, where the excesses were. We went to the agencies. Time after time after time after time, we asked those agencies, ``Please, do you realize that we have got to cut spending? Do you realize that if we do not, our country is going to become insolvent, that we are not going to be able to take care of our kids, that we are not going to be able to take care of our elderly people? Will you help us, agency, will you help us pinpoint where it is we can cut so that we are laymen, the people sitting here trying to do our job in cutting spending first, can do it more intelligently?'' But, no, we were stonewalled.…”