Mike Pence: “with a record deficit and national debt, now is the time for Congress to practice fiscal discipline, even where funding…”

“with a record deficit and national debt, now is the time for Congress to practice fiscal discipline, even where funding the war on terror is concerned. While I have supported our troops and funding the rebuilding and reconstruction efforts along the gulf coast, I could not bring myself to support recent emergency funding legislation that left this House of Representatives at some $92 billion, including many elements that the President of the United States thought were unnecessary. Well, if things were bad before, they just got worse. Madam Speaker, the Senate is working on the emergency supplemental bill, and it is now at $106.5 billion and rising, including such unrelated measures as $3 million for southern and eastern Kentucky tourism and $900,000 for Dartmouth College, to name two. Let us support funding the war on terror and support the families and communities affected by the hurricanes that hit the gulf coast, but let us do it in a fiscally responsible way. This legislation has become a fruit basket of spending unrelated to our war efforts and Katrina; and I say plainly, Mr. President, veto this bill. ____________________”