On the recordFebruary 15, 2011
I thank the gentleman from Georgia for the time. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we got the President's budget and it was basically more of the same: higher taxes, more spending, more deficits. In fact, it will give us the third year of trillion-dollar deficits. And it made no mention of entitlement reform. In fact, the President ignored the recommendations of his very own hand-picked deficit reduction commission. It was very disappointing. But at the same time I want to work with the President. Where he wants to save money and reduce spending, I think it's important for Republicans to reach out and say yes. Now it sounds to me like the Democrats want to remove themselves from that process, which is interesting because what we are debating in this $100 billion spending reduction bill is an open rule process where Democrats can put amendments on the board. And if they do agree with us, as I'm sure they do, that for every dollar we spend, 40 cents is borrowed, that our national debt is 96 percent of our GDP right now, and that spending each year is 25 percent of the GDP, a historical high, then I know they would want to act with us rather than against us and try to address this situation. So I say to my Democrat friends, if you feel this is too much, then offer your own spending cuts. This is what can change in Washington this year.…
