On the recordMarch 3, 2011
I think we are at a serious point in time in our history, and we need to be realistic about what confronts us ahead of time. The biggest bluff this year in the Congress was the 2012 budget presented by the President which did not take any of the recommendations from his own deficit commission--by the way, I was one of the Republicans who supported that--and instead locked in a 25.4- percent increase in spending over the last 2 years and made it permanent by calling it a freeze. It raises taxes in the outyears and dedicates a higher regulatory environment in the United States of America. None of that does anything to reduce the debt or the deficit. In fact, the President's budget actually makes it worse. But it is fair to ask people to step up. The American people are asking us to step up. They want us to do what they have been doing in the last 3 years: sit around their kitchen table, reorganize their priorities, spend within their means, and reduce their debt and the deficit.
