Christopher Shays: “One reason I like my community meetings, I call it my community test, if I have got to go to my community in a community…”

“One reason I like my community meetings, I call it my community test, if I have got to go to my community in a community meeting, I have got to tell them what we are doing, and if it does not pass, you know, if I cannot pass it through my constituents in a community meeting, I do not vote for it. There is no way I can justify seeing what has happened in the last 22 years, and my constituents have told me almost to a person, ``You get a handle on this Federal budget. You stop the obscene annual deficits.'' Revenue is here, spending is here, at the end of that year the deficit is added to the national debt; they want us to end it. That is what we are going to do. I mean we have three objectives. We want to get our financial house in order and balance the Federal budget. We want to save our trust funds, particularly Medicare, from bankruptcy, and we want to transform this social and corporate welfare state into a true caring opportunity society. We are not going to give up.”