Dan Coats: “I repeatedly have come down to the Senate floor to talk about our budget issues. Earlier this morning I talked about my…”

“I repeatedly have come down to the Senate floor to talk about our budget issues. Earlier this morning I talked about my 18th waste of the week--looking at waste, fraud, and abuse in terms of government spending and a waste of taxpayers' dollars. The first 4 years of this 6-year term that I am enjoying and participating in, I have been consumed with the issue of our continuing deficit spending and increasing national debt. I was part of a group working directly with the President in an effort for many months with his top people to reach an agreement on how to address our long-term budget situation. It is no secret that under this administration the national debt has almost doubled. It is staggering to think that over the 230 or 240 years of the life of this country we have gone from $10.6 trillion to now $18.8 trillion of debt. It is going to have consequences. As chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, we recently released some information entitled ``Ten Things to know about CBO's Long-Term Budget Outlook.'' This is something we spent a great deal of time debating years ago, but it has fallen under the radar. We are obviously dealing with issues that are important. This Iran deal that has just been signed by the administration deserves intense concentration and consideration in terms of how we address it. We also have the continuing economic malaise and slow recovery from the recession.…”