On the recordDecember 8, 2011
The big driving force here is the entitlements. If we look at the revenue coming into the government, it is all being spent on entitlements and interest. Forty percent of every dollar is borrowed, but that means we have to borrow all the money for national defense, for our roads, all the rest of government. Forty percent of every dollar, $40,000 a second, is being borrowed. Why don't we come to an agreement? I have been asking many people on the other side that, and they say we will not fix entitlements until we have a $1 trillion tax increase. If that is the starting point, we are never going to fix entitlements because many of us think raising taxes is a mistake, in the middle of a recession, and we think more money left in the private sector would be better spent for jobs. We have the balanced budget debate as part of this debate on how to reduce spending on the entitlement programs because they consume 60 percent of the budget. But there is this unwillingness up here. I think people would like us to find solutions. When I go home to my State, it doesn't matter whether they are a Republican or Democrat or Independent; they want us to fix the entitlement programs. They don't want it to be dependent on increasing taxes on everyone also.
