Jeff Miller: “It was very disappointing for a Member who is a very fiscally conservative Member to see a proposal that has more smoke…”

“It was very disappointing for a Member who is a very fiscally conservative Member to see a proposal that has more smoke and mirrors of how to spend more money. We had a budget agreement that we agreed to last year, and I had the pleasure of being at the South Lawn of the White House when the President signed that document in August. Less than 6 months later, we have $150 billion more in spending. I know they have a lot of neat little gimmicks of how to disguise the spending, but the bottom line is it is not in the spirit of the budget agreement that was signed last year and in the reconciliation bill that was signed into law by the President. That was not the intent of the agreement that we worked on last year. For those of us who went along with that agreement, knowing that we would have to have tight spending controls this coming year, we feel very, very disappointed; and I feel it is not right to try to get us to move ahead with more spending programs at this time. One of the ways to justify it is this tobacco settlement. I am not a pro-tobacco Congressman. I would be classified as an anti-tobacco Congressman. But the point is, we should not begin spending money until we have it in our hands.”