On the recordFebruary 6, 2013
I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Chairman, we've heard a number of the last speakers complain about the fact that the President's budget will be a little late this year. Again, for the new Members joining us--and we welcome all of the new Members, those being Republicans and Democrats--in the last session of Congress, we were here until January 2 trying to put together an agreement to avoid the fiscal cliff. That was the President's priority--to make sure that we didn't hurt jobs and the economy by going over the fiscal cliff. The overwhelming majority of our Republican colleagues in this House voted against that plan because they were more focused on protecting tax breaks for very wealthy individuals than about protecting jobs and the economy. That's their choice. Their Senate Republican colleagues made a different choice, but our House Republican colleagues can make the choice that they want. Now, with respect to the budget, the President will submit a budget, and our House Republican colleagues can reject it or do what they want with it. The issue is not whether he'll submit a budget. He will. The issue is whether or not we would dictate to the President what the form of his budget should take, and that is wrong. It is also a little curious to hear this newfound support for these sort of balanced budgets from our Republican colleagues. I would just remind everybody that the last time we had a balanced budget was at the end of the Clinton administration.…
