Chris Murphy: “Because when people out there in the public, and I did this too when I was watching Congress for years, sees some of…”

“Because when people out there in the public, and I did this too when I was watching Congress for years, sees some of these cuts to programs here that people up here in Washington talk about, you know, the government tightening their belts and doing the right thing for curbing the growth of spending programs; what they don't understand is that just passes on the buck, as you said, to the states. Now, the States sometimes pick up the tab and pass it along in increases in the sales tax or the income tax. But in Connecticut what often happens is that the cuts to these programs just get passed down again. In Connecticut, they get passed down to the local towns, counties, and other States. And in Connecticut, the property taxes just go up. So all of this supposed belt tightening that happens here to programs that need to get taken care of, whether they be education programs or health care programs, just get passed down and somebody else pays for them. That really in the end, Mr. Altmire, to me is one of the worst cases of fiscal irresponsibility, because you are pretending that you are taking care of a problem when really you are just handing it down for somebody else to take care of.”