Steve Womack

I have given up hope that we are going to balance the books of the federal government.

It would improve the process greatly. I would encourage you to try to do that.

So the constraints that you suggest that we put on ourselves, they are only there for one reason, and that is not to explode this deficit and debt situation, even further exacerbate the situation as we currently have, which most people…

We are crowding out the investments that you gentlemen are suggesting that we continue to make to grow our economy.

I am proud to support the bill authored by my friend, the mayor from Knox County, and his Democrat cosponsor, Mr. Case.

I am often asked at home: when are you guys going to get together and do something, instead of fighting with each other?

Congress must come together in a bipartisan, bicameral fashion to reduce the debt, deliver on our Article I responsibilities and make good on our responsibility to the American people who have to balance their own budgets each month.

Simply put, the debt is on a completely unsustainable trajectory.

Our economy is strong. Forward momentum continues, thanks to the pro-growth policies enacted last Congress and under this Administration.

I think it is a Congress issue. I think it is a people issue that we have to agree that what we are doing right now is unsustainable.

I think we have got to get back to that place where there is bipartisan support for doing these things, and that is really the key.

I would hope that our Committee will eventually come to terms with that and be willing to deal with it no matter how tough the political world may be.

There has been a resurgence of economic confidence within our country.

I am sure it was more over political reasons and the political consequences of trying to support something like that rather than one on merit.

I think, required to address because we have a broken immigration policy.

I agree with my colleagues that talk about the need to do a budget because I do think, as Speaker Pelosi indicated, that it is a statement of your values.

It is indisputable that as a percentage of our economy, discretionary spending... is going down, and that as a percentage of the economy, mandatory spending is continuing to skyrocket.

I believe that $22.5 trillion of debt is way too much, and we are going to spend $400-plus billion this year on servicing that debt.

I think the conversation would be better spent talking about issues of how do we better prevent a recession from happening through our policy discussions and get off of this desire or this insatiable appetite to talk about relitigating the…

But here we are today talking about how can we add to more mandatory spending in this country when any person with half a brain and decent in eighth grade math can figure out that when 70 percent of your federal spending is on the…

I said in my opening remarks that--and this is kind of a prayer that I have for our country--that we would spend as much time trying to use lessons learned in history to better protect ourselves against a recession, a potential recession…

Our focus should be on preventing a future crisis instead of just trying to react to one.

We should be working to bring more of those expenditures back under our oversight, which is, in my opinion, where they belong.

Whether some would like to admit it or not, there has been a resurgence of economic confidence within our country.

As Members of Congress, how can we support the VA, and are there legislative changes we need to make to help stem leadership and accountability failures?