Darrell Issa: “Shame on this body. We have a $10 trillion hole in the difference between our spending and our revenue, and we can't…”

“Shame on this body. We have a $10 trillion hole in the difference between our spending and our revenue, and we can't find a way to compromise? The gentleman from Maryland said that it didn't receive a single Democratic vote. This is the most humble and minimal proposal I could imagine. The chairman of the Budget Committee, himself, would recognize that we're not getting close to a balanced budget with this. We're simply making a down payment on it. My committee marked up one of the largest portions of these improvements, which aligns the Federal workforce's compensation, including Members of Congress and their staffs, a little closer to the rest of the workforce, a little closer to the rest of hardworking Americans, and yet we can't get a single Democratic vote. I say to the Democrats, quite frankly, shame on you for not being able to make a down payment on a $10 trillion shortfall. And to my colleagues on the Republican side, this isn't enough. This isn't nearly enough, but at least we're showing that we don't have a partner in the White House and we don't have a partner in this body that will work with us to begin a down payment on $10 trillion worth of shortfall. In closing, even if, in fact, the President got his original wish, that we were going to go over the cliff and raise $538 billion in new revenue, we would still have $500 billion worth of excess spending that has built up since Bill Clinton left office. I hope the American people are watching.…”