Dan Coats: “I wish to make some remarks about the President's budget, which was presented to us on Monday of this week as his annual…”

“I wish to make some remarks about the President's budget, which was presented to us on Monday of this week as his annual proposal to Congress. Given our country's enormous fiscal challenges and the results of the 2014 midterm election, I think there was hope among many of us that the release of this budget would be an opportunity for the President to work with us. There was a lot of talk about working with Congress, working together. The message from the November 2014 election was that the American people want Congress to get some things done. And by the way, what about the continuing deficit? Are we going to get back to this draconian knife held over our throats, where the budget continues to put us in a position where debt and deficit continue to be the plague which is going to have enormous, negative consequences on the future of this country? Given these enormous challenges, there was really hope the President with his last 2 years, would see as part of his legacy an opportunity to work together to put us on a sound fiscal path. But much like the coach of the Seahawks on the 1-yard line, the President chose to make the wrong call. In this case, in my opinion--and I think the opinion of many--the right call would have been a plan that actually puts us on a path for a balanced budget, addresses a skyrocketing mandatory spending burden and reforms our outdated Tax Code. These are, hopefully, ideas that both Republicans and Democrats could agree on.…”