Marilyn Musgrave: “as I think about this amendment again, I have heard from the distinguished chairman, and I do applaud his work and the…”

“as I think about this amendment again, I have heard from the distinguished chairman, and I do applaud his work and the work of the ranking member on this appropriations bill, but I heard, I believe it was Representative Contee talk about a meat-ax approach to reducing spending. I would just like to say again that this .5 percent is just a gentle shave. We need to look at the trajectory when we look at appropriations bills and see where they are going. We need to ask the American family, are you guaranteed a 4.5 percent increase in your income every year? I think we need to think of that American family, particularly moms and dads with children that are trying to figure out how long they are going to have to work in the year before they reach tax freedom day. How many days do they have to work before they have earned enough money to pay the government to spend like this with increases every year? I am hoping we can look out for the American taxpayer, we can look out for hard-working Americans and say we are going to exercise fiscal responsibility, and we are going to start out with a very small step, reducing spending in this Interior appropriations bill by .5 percent. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.”