On the recordFebruary 6, 2013
For those Members of this body who were not focused on this debate yesterday, let's make a couple of things clear. The President will introduce a budget, he is going to submit a budget, and he has submitted a budget every year. Our Republican colleagues don't like his budget because he takes a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, meaning that in addition to cuts, he also calls for additional revenue from taking away special tax breaks for special interests. That's number one. Number two, what this bill does is, number one, require the President to submit his budget in a certain way; and number two, it criticizes the President for submitting his budget late. Again, for those who weren't part of the debate yesterday, the reason the President's budget is late is because we had to pass the fiscal cliff agreement. We didn't get that done until January 2. And I have to say, Madam Chairman, we got it done despite the overwhelming opposition of House Republicans. We were pleased to get the overwhelming support of Senate Republicans, but House Republicans continue to take the position that they were prepared to go over the fiscal cliff in order to protect tax breaks for very wealthy people. That's why the President's budget is late, because as any American family knows, if you don't know what revenue is coming in, you can't put together your household budget. We didn't know what kind of revenue was coming in until January 2.…
